Here's the second and final part of the interview with former Pakistan batsman and coach Mudassar Nazar. I have to admit I really enjoyed speaking to Mudassar. He's an individual with honest opinions and well thought out ideas and its a shame that he's no longer involved with Pakistan cricket.
by Saj Sadiq (18th September 2009)
PakPassion.Net : You had the knack of getting David Gower out on a regular basis. Did you have a special plan for him or did it become psychological in that Gower was worried when you bowled to him?
Mudassar Nazar : Sometimes certain bowlers do trouble certain batsmen. I know during my career I went through a phase where Ian Botham and Kapil Dev regularly got me out. With Gower, yes he was a bit apprehensive when the ball was given to me. The angle of my delivery troubled him as I bowled wide of the crease and aimed to angle the ball across him. He was a great player, very free flowing, but I felt you always had a chance to get him out if you could get some lateral movement. I remember once at Faisalabad I got him out, but only after he had scored 176 runs (laughs).
PakPassion.Net : You were one of the men closest to Imran Khan in the 1980s, if not the closest. You batted with Javed Miandad during your record partnership and departed before Miandad. What are your views on Imran's declaration, as rumour has it that some senior players convinced Imran to declare the innings before Miandad scored a triple century or even surpassed the score of 365 and therefore overshadowed Imran's achievements in the series against India?
Mudassar Nazar : The innings that you are referring to was in Hyderabad. There was no talk amongst the team about individual records, rather it was talk to win the test match. Imran sent a message out to Javed and Zaheer Abbass to push the scoring rate, as we were going to be trying to dismiss what was a great Indian batting lineup, but both Miandad and Zaheer got bogged down and continued to bat without too much urgency. We were in a commanding position and the situation was that we needed to score quickly.
As far as I am concerned cricket is about winning and not about individual records and the disappointing thing about this incident was that it was blown out of all proportion by the Karachi media who had a dislike for Imran Khan.
PakPassion.Net : How do you perceive recent PCB decisions of making Shahid Afridi the T20 captain and omitting Abdul Razzaq from the Champions Trophy squad?
Mudassar Nazar : Shahid Afridi is an excellent choice as captain. He has done very well as skipper in domestic cricket and he backs himself as captain. A good captain is one that leads from the front and Shahid does that. As far as I am concerned Afridi is the best T20 player in the world at the moment and I think he can take that confidence into one day cricket.
As for Abdul Razzaq. I had a long chat with him when I was at the academy. He had just finished a long bowling session at the NCA in Lahore and I had been watching him closely. I said to him that there were parts of his game that he really needed to work on and address some issues. He had become a lazy cricketer, his bowling was being clocked at 120kph and I felt he had more to offer. The problems with Abdul Razzaq as I saw them were mental issues. He needs to look at his game and develop his bowling so that he can be more effective on flat tracks. With regards to his batting, Abdul Razzaq is technically a very compact batsman, but it seems that these days he just wants to slog.
Abdul is someone who isn't too fond of test cricket and favours the shorter versions of the game.
PakPassion.Net : What are your thoughts on the opinions of Sarfraz Nawaz?
Mudassar Nazar : Sarfraz was a great team mate of mine. On the field he gave his absolute all in every match and he was a fantastic guy to have on our team. He was a very knowledgeable cricketer.
However these days Sarfraz is the first to point at match fixing whenever Pakistan lose a match. You never hear from him when Pakistan do well, yet he's the first name in the press when Pakistan loses. This adds more pressure on the players when former players do this sort of thing. He should have more balanced views and praise the team when they are performing well, instead of being negative for the sake of it.
We've reached a situation where our current players are scared to lose, due to the opinions of former players like Sarfraz and some of our former players need to learn how to accept defeat.
Sarfraz is someone who could have been very useful in coaching our younger bowlers, and I'm sure the PCB would have used his services. However the fact that the PCB have never asked Sarfraz for help is down to Sarfraz himself and his negativity.
(note - this interview was done prior to Sarfraz being asked by the PCB to help out at the forthcoming fast bowlers camp).
PakPassion.Net : Why is Pakistan having so many problems producing good quality opening batsmen?
Mudassar Nazar : The biggest problem as far as I am concerned is far too much chopping and changing at the top of the order by the selectors. As a result of this continuous change in personnel, it means that no player at the top of the order plays with any confidence. Instead what happens is that whoever is selected feels that after one or two low scores, he will be dropped from the team instead of being given a decent run in the team and a proper chance.
An example of this chopping and changing and the effects it has on players is that I remember sitting next to Sunil Gavaskar and we were watching Yasir Hameed batting. Sunil turned round and said to me "I used to love watching Yasir bat, he was such a fluent and confident batsman who had all the shots, what have they done to him, he looks a pale shadow of the player he was".
I recall Imran Khan saying to me that openers have to be given a fair chance and an example of this was Rameez Raja who in all honesty wasn't an opening bat, but was "made into one" for the sake of the team.
Its unfortunate that from time to timewe have to resort to playing middle order batsman as openers. For example the likes of Shoaib Malik who has woeful technique for an opening batsman.
PakPassion.Net : You had 2 stints as coach of the Pakistan team, would you give it another go if the opportunity arose?
Mudassar Nazar : No I would not ! In my first stint I think I was too young to be the coach of the Pakistan team as I still had a lot of "connections" with the players, having played alongside some of them. I was 33 or 34 when I was coach and I had only just stopped playing at the age of 32. During my second spell as coach, I did not receive the backing of the Chairman and that made my task even more difficult than it was.
There is far too much politics when it comes to coaching the team and its a very difficult job when you are trying to juggle with all the day to day tasks as well as the politics going on behind the scenes.
PakPassion.Net : During your second stint as coach the team performed reasonably well, do you feel bitter about being sacked over a couple of bad weeks and also about the manner of your dismissal (summoned while 2002 Champions Trophy was in progress)?
Mudassar Nazar : No, there's no bitterness from my side. It was all part of a learning curve for me and I prefer to focus on my current role and the development of young players from UAE and other Associate members.
PakPassion.Net : Please compare Javed Miandad and Inzamam ul Haq, what in your opinion were their relative strengths and weaknesses?
Mudassar Nazar : Thats a tough one to call. I would say Javed was a better player of spin. He wasn't the greatest technically, but he was mentally very tough and thrived on pressure. He was a very free flowing batsman but restrained himself very well when the situation asked for him to do so. He of course was the backbone of the Pakistan batting for many years.
Inzamam was a better player of fast bowling than Javed Miandad in my opinion. Inzi was like Javed, mentally very tough and scored a lot of his runs when the chips were down. He had a lot of pressure on him as the senior player and one of his big strengths was that he batted according to the match situation and spared Pakistan's blushes on many occasions.
PakPassion.Net : Its been a pleasure speaking to you and on behalf of everyone at PakPassion I'd like to thank you for your time in giving us this interview and we wish you all the best for the future.
Mudassar Nazar : No problems and Many thanks.
