Dreaming the dream team for Pakistan

That the bunch of talented and spoiled boys we have raised as the national cricket team is in for a shake-up after the Champions Trophy debacle will be the understatement of the season. They may all be fired summarily, without benefits, for all we care.

It is not about this tournament though, which was only a catalyst, or about Team Pakistan which has been seriously ill for a long time. It’s the cricket officialdom in Pakistan. We have created a shady organisation headed by a political appointee and filled with cronies and lackeys of all shades. This rag tag administration has given us more scandals than cricket matches and more crooks, druggies, slackers and gamblers than professional cricketers and inspiring sportsmen. Sending them all back home will be neither unfair nor shocking for anyone.

The big question is who do we replace them with? That this country of nearly 200 million is teeming with talent is a given. The occasional display of excellence and triumph on the field is proof that regardless of the system’s hindrances some of the talent does filter through. Only, people charged with spotting talent and grooming it cannot decide on the definition of talent and the location of the talent pool. And so, we have a cricket board that has been looking for a batsman wicket keeper for many years but it casts its net only in the Akmal household. It selects Imran Farhat for every tournament in the hope that the opener’s talent will finally unlock, that he’ll find his groove eventually. It pits one player and group of players against the other and watches them fight their locker room fights on the ground.

So who decides what’s good for Pakistan cricket? It’s the president of Pakistan who is patron-in-chief of Pakistan Cricket Board. He has the authority to appoint a senile and withering old man who played a couple of Test matches in the days of black-and-white television, or a banker, a bureaucrat, a retired or serving army general, a medicine doctor … as head of the board. He receives Shoaib Malik and his Indian tennis star wife, Sania Mirza, at the presidency and that makes Malik – thrown out of the team for consistently bad performance, breach of discipline, and financial misconduct – fit to be in the team again. Every criminal activity by the players – abusing and smuggling drugs, match and spot fixing etc – is not only tolerated and never investigated (unless arm-twisted by ICC) but defended in foreign courts with your money and mine (we paid a million dirhams to get Mohammed Asif out of a UAE jail where he ended up for drugs possession, according to newspaper reports).

But cricket is our game. We pay the board its ridiculously generous salaries, allowances and privileges, shamefully disproportionate to their responsibilities. We pay the players for representing us at the international level and when they do well we make them our heroes and fill the stadium to cheer them up. The entire structure of cricket exists in this country because of us, because of our passion for cricket and because of our money. It is, therefore our right to guide the PCB in finding and retaining cricketing talent. Here is a set of suggested guidelines that you are welcome to add to:

1- Talent means cricketing talent, not the talent to whack every ball with closed eyes or hit the deck hard with a mindless regularity or to produce and sell cricket gear. For the example of a well-rounded and committed cricketer as role model for today’s young we have to go back to Javed Miandad who, in addition to being a class batsman, was a live wire in the field in the days when fielding wasn’t as glamorous and as crucial as it is today. Since him we have only been getting bowlers and batsmen, not cricketers.

2- The game of cricket is all about making runs. It starts and ends with making a certain number of runs in a certain number of overs. If you aren’t making runs, at the required pace, you have no place in the team. At present, half our team cannot bat because they see themselves only as bowlers or wicket keepers. No more. The Dream Team will bat, and make runs, all the way to the last pair. Exceptions will be very few. You can be allowed to bat like Mohammed Irfan only if you can bowl better than Wasim Akram.

3- Our batsmen follow either the Afridi or the Misbah school, sometimes both in the same innings, like making six runs in 30 balls and then getting out trying to hit a big one, and as a result wasting five overs and a wicket. Afridi and Misbah are merely states of mind, one is flashy and hurried, the other is painfully slow and both are self-defeating, and for that reason redundant in modern limited overs cricket. We need batsmen who can defend well all the time and attack fearlessly when required. The followers of the two above-mentioned styles will automatically be disqualified.

4- Regardless of how seriously we take our cricket, it remains a sport. It’s a game to be enjoyed. And so, it follows that, players are partly entertainers. They entertain us with their mastery of the sport. They use international fixtures to showcase their skill and innovation. Even during the hardest and slowest of toils a batsman will find a ball now and then to flash his bat at, to wow the spectators. The fielder will pull off an impossible catch; the wicket keeper will perform a stunt of a stumping under the influence of spectators-induced adrenalin. If the player enjoys what he is doing, and does it well consistently, he is entertaining.

5- Physical fitness is all well and good but cricket is essentially a mind game. It’s a clash of wills between a batsman and 11 opponents. As the weaker side starts accepting the opponent’s domination, the match is over, mentally. For this reason we need young men with brains, those who are strong of will and have power of passion and conviction. We need 18-year-old men, not 30-something-year-old boys.

6- And before any of the above, the PCB must be made accessible to players and accountable to people. It should be run by cricketers, cricket lovers, and professional administrators, not Zardaris, Musharrafs and their chamchas, They need to play their own game and leave ours to us

Ms Dhoni

"I would consider him as great because when it comes to Indian cricket, you're under the microscope throughout, He's seen the format change, right from start in 1989. From that time, Test cricket has changed significantly. ODI cricket, there have been a plenty of changes. The introduction of T20 has come, and overall it had an impact on each and every thing," 

"It's not only the cricketing aspect; I think what's difficult is handle success in India, the expectations of the people. We're expected to win each and every game, which is not possible. Yes, there are other greats, but there was one thing they didn't have to deal with, and that's the level of expectations. When you're doing well that itself puts pressure on you. But imagine when you're going through a lean patch, the expectations go up, they never come down,"

"So you've to handle all those things. I have seen some of the foreign cricketers, they handle the cricketing pressures well. But when it comes to handling the pressures that are not really related to cricket, they buckle under... So he's been fantastic, and there's plenty to learn from him. Right from 1989 he became big star, for a quarter of century he's played for India, and he's always been a star."

Literary Criticism

Criticism is the analysis and judgment of works of art. It tries to interpret and to evaluate such works and to examine the principles by which they may be understood. Criticism attempts to promote high standards among artists and to encourage the appreciation of art. It also helps society remain aware of the value of both past and present works of art.

Criticism plays an important part in every art form. This article emphasizes literary criticism. Kinds of literary criticism. Criticism can be divided into four basic types. They differ according to which aspect of art the critic chooses to emphasize. Formal criticism examines the forms or structures of works of art. It may also compare a work with others of its genre (kind), such as other tragic plays or other sonnets. Formal criticism is sometimes intrinsic–that is, it may seek to treat each work of art as complete in itself. Rhetorical criticism analyzes the means by which a work of art affects an audience. It focuses on style and on general principles of psychology. Expressive criticism regards works as expressing the ideas or feelings of the artist. It examines the artist’s background and conscious or unconscious motives. Mimetic criticism views art as an imitation of the world. It analyzes the ways that artists show reality, and their thoughts about it. The four types of criticism can also be combined. For example, a critic who looks at the form of a work might also study the way this form affects an audience.

History of Literary Criticism

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was the first known literary critic. He accused poetry of imitating the mere appearance of things. Aristotle, his pupil, defended epic poetry and tragic drama. In his Poetics, Aristotle said that poetry is an instructive imitation, not of things but of actions. Other essays on criticism tended to be rhetorical handbooks that taught writers how to achieve certain effects. They included Art of Poetry by the Roman poet Horace and On the Sublime by the Greek writer Longinus.

During the late 1500′s, such critics as the English poet Sir Philip Sidney praised literature as the image of an ideal world. During the 1600′s and 1700′s, critics turned their attention to defining the rules by which they thought works should be written and judged. The three most important English critics during this period were John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, and Alexander Pope.

In the early 1900′s, the poet T. S. Eliot argued for a criticism that would be the servant of poetry, not of society. I. A. Richards, an English critic, developed methods of close reading. He asked readers to pay attention to the exact meaning of the text, not to impose their own ideas on it. In the mid-1900′s, a movement called the New Criticism was popular in the United States. Such New Critics as CleanthBrooks and John Crowe Ransom analyzed a work of literature as a self-contained whole, without reference to its historical period, the author’s life, or other external influences.

Secrets of Death

Secrets of Death

Death is literally described as the end of life. Every living thing eventually dies, but human beings are probably the only creatures that can imagine their own deaths. Most people fear death and try to avoid thinking about it. But the awareness of death has been one of the chief forces in the development of civilization.

Throughout history, people have continually sought new medical knowledge with which to delay death. Philosophers and religious leaders have tried to understand the meaning of death. Some scholars believe that much human progress results from people’s efforts to overcome death and gain immortality through lasting achievements.

Medical Aspects of Death

Scientists recognize three types of death that occur during the life of all organisms except those consisting of only one cell. These types are necrobiosis, necrosis, and somatic death. Necrobiosis is the continual death and replacement of individual cells through life. Except for nerve cells, all the cells of an organism are constantly being replaced. For example, new skin cells form under the surface as the old ones die and flake off.

Necrosis is the death of tissues or even entire organs. During a heart attack, for example, a blood clot cuts off the circulation of the blood to part of the heart. The affected part dies, but the organism continues to live unless the damage has been severe.

Somatic death is the end of all life processes in an organism. A person whose heart and lungs stop working may be considered clinically dead, but somatic death may not yet have occurred. The individual cells of the body continue to live for several minutes. The person may be revived if the heart and lungs start working again and give the cells the oxygen they need. After about three minutes, the brain cells–which are most sensitive to a lack of oxygen–begin to die. The person is soon dead beyond any possibility of revival. Gradually, other cells of the body also die. The last ones to perish are the bone, hair, and skin cells, which may continue to grow for several hours. Many changes take place after death. The temperature of the body slowly drops to that of its surroundings. The muscles develop a stiffening called rigor mortis. The blood, which no longer circulates, settles and produces reddish-purple discolorations in the lowest areas of the body. Eventually, bacteria and other tiny organisms grow on the corpse and cause it to decay. Defining death. Traditionally, a person whose breathing and heartbeat had stopped was considered dead. Today, however, physicians can prolong the functioning of the lungs and heart by artificial means. Various machines can produce breathing and a heartbeat even in a patient whose brain has been destroyed. These new medical procedures led many people to call for a new definition of death.

The Uniform Determination of Death Act, which was drafted in 1980, has been adopted by most states of the United States. Under this act, a person is considered dead when breathing and the heartbeat irreversibly stop, or when brain function totally and irreversibly stops, which is a condition also called brain death. The act permits physicians to use reasonable medical standards in applying this legal definition.

The brain-death definition of death raises important medical, legal, and moral questions. People who support this definition argue that it benefits society by making vital organs available for transplants. In most cases, the organs of a person who has died under the traditional definition are damaged and cannot be transplanted. But many vital organs remain alive and functioning in an individual whose body processes are maintained by machine, even though brain activity has stopped. Physicians can use these organs in transplants–if brain death is accepted as a legal definition. Critics of the brain-death definition point out that there are many unanswered questions regarding this concept. Such questions include: Who should decide which definition of death to use? When has brain death reached the point where it cannot be reversed?