Every team sport or individual sport for that matter require some gritty, tenacious and fighting characters. In other sport you just see guys like Nadal, Djokovic, Vettel, LeBron, Eli Manning and Floyd Mayweather and you are mesmerised by their grit, intensity and never say die attitude. In cricket there have been players who were blessed with such characteristics that enable them to play beyond their abilities at times. In recent times the Aus team of late 90s to mid 2000s was full of such characters Steve Waugh, McGrath, Warne, Bevan and Gilchrist were few of them. In modern day cricket you can see MS Dhoni, K Pietersen, Dale Steyn, Shane Watson, Sangakarra as few of many such gritty players

Now coming to Pakistan in the past we have had Miandad, Inzamam, Moin, Akram and Akhtar who have had such traits but if we look at the current team there is hardly any player who exhibits such traits. Watching the Pak vs Ind game I hardly saw any intensity or agression for that matter. I mean to say why didnt Junaid dive to reach the non striker end and to avoid taht run out. THe problem lies in the non competitive nature of our domestic competition. With so many teams and many onesided matches we fail to see that fierce rivalry that used to exist in the past like HBL vs PIA or the Lhr vs Khi. Lesser teams with quality players will give rise to fierce competition and fierce rivalries like Junaid vs Shafiq or Ajmal vs Jamshed etc and would breed players with real grit and tenacity.

Discuss!