Hope and half a team

While the rest of the world was calmly pondering one or two positions in their World Cup squads, Pakistan was mulling over half a squad. Seven names could be guessed before the announcement but the rest? Injuries, doping, form all had the PCB delaying the announcement all through the afternoon.

So first the less bad news: Pakistan have managed to cobble together a squad of 15 and within the ICC deadline too. Now the bad news, of which there is some.

Pakistan's success in the Caribbean was always to rest, in large parts, on their pace attack. But like the legend of India's spin quartet, who only played one Test together, the strength of Pakistan's pace attack has also now become a partial myth. Their first-choice trio, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul are a dream together, figuratively and literally for they have never appeared together and are unlikely to do so, possibly ever. Because of their presence, this still remains a squad that isn't.

Rana Naved-ul-Hasan has been Pakistan's most incisive ODI bowler for nearly two years. But with a sense of timing generally associated with Pakistani weddings, he has chosen the run-up to the World Cup in which to slump painfully and dramatically. Not to worry, for behind these four, every conceivable option...also appears to be crocked.

The selectors have taken two gambits in Danish Kaneria and Imran Nazir, both brave but also eminently questionable. For what it's worth, Kaneria is an admirable, shrewd pick, a victory in the mini-battle of cricket thoughts for those who prefer specialists over bit-part, neither-fully-here-nor-fully-there allrounders.

But he has so resoundingly not been part of Inzamam-ul-Haq and Bob Woolmer's ODI plans over the last two years that the move is, at its root, nothing more credible than a punt. He's played seven ODIs in the time since Woolmer took charge, only 16 ever and has not been part of any ODI squad for over a year. His will, and no little skill, may see him through but a punt is a punt is a punt.

Abdur Rehman, the specialist spinner Pakistan did try and prepare for the tournament is dropped, one two-over hammering on the back of three very decent batches of ten overs reason enough apparently.

Nazir's return is a racy decision; potentially it can be explosively good but you have to wonder about another man who hasn't been in your thinking until just recently sneaking in, essentially on the basis of one extraordinary innings in three years. By that stick, Yasir Hameed, who has dutifully made 41, 57, 71 and 41 in his last four ODIs spread over two years, should've been a shoo-in.

Beyond that mind you, options were admittedly limited. Opening has become such a desperate thing that Sadiq Mohammad and Mohammad Ilyas, openers from the 60s and 70s, called up Cricinfo (exclusively, wouldn't you know) and announced that they were willing to offer their services.

It was worth a call too, what with Moin Khan offering to keep wickets for Pakistan again. Moin's offer, tragically funny as it was, did ram home another planning failure as reflected in this squad. There is no back-up to Kamran Akmal, who has had a year so shaky that Wasim Bari, chief selector and one-time gloved genius, said as recently as four ODIs ago that he needs a break. He wasn't given one, Zulqarnain Haider becoming less understudy, more non-existent. Pakistan will now hope that Akmal's slight upturn in wicketkeeping fortunes just recently continues for there is no one behind him.

What these selections in particular say about Pakistan's planning over the last three years is similar to what Lord Mountbatten is reputed to have admitted years later about his role in the partition of the subcontinent: "I f****ed it up."

Add to this the fact that Shahid Afridi not available for the first two games, one of which is particularly vital, and Pakistan's prospects appear ever more precarious. In fact, if you inhale hard enough, you might just catch a whiff already of an impending clear-out post-World Cup, just like 2003. Captain, coach, chief selector, senior players, all can conceivably be gone after the West Indies.

Which is precisely why, of course, nobody will rule Pakistan out. It is at moments such as this, with squads as ravaged by controversies, scandals and injuries, that Pakistan, uniquely, can never be discounted as a threat. The build-up and run-in to 1992 wasn't this bad but it wasn't much better. Forget the plans and long-term vision, say selectors. We're winging it now, hoping and praying. At least we're used to it.