March 15, 1955, saw the birth of one of the most good-looking cricketers, on and off the pitch, to come out of Pakistan. Jaideep Vaidya goes through the career of a thoroughly entertaining cricketer-turned-actor-turned-selector-turned-coach.



Mohsin Khan was one of those dashing cricketers. His filmstar looks and personality complimented his on-field avatar. An opening batsman, Mohsin was a joy to watch when in flow. His strokes were like a well-oiled machine. He was equally capable of playing on either foot, but loved to waltz a couple of steps down the track before slashing his blade at the delivery. Watching Mohsin slashing the cherries is reminiscent of the popular smartphone game "Fruit Ninja"; he could do it all day.

Mohsin had a decent start to his Test career in 1978. His exploits in his first six innings read: 44, 35, 38, 31, 36 and 41. This was followed by a dry patch for a couple of years, before he finally notched up his maiden Test ton in Lahore against Sri Lanka in 1982. That was the breakthrough moment for Mohsin as he went on to establish himself at the top of the order alongside Mudassar Nazar.

His next ton was a double hundred; it came at the sanctum santorum of cricket, Lord's. Mohsin became the first Pakistani to score a double century at the hallowed turf of Lord's and it was an innings where he decimated an attack boasting of the likes of Ian Botham, Robin Jackman and Derek Pringle to help Pakistan win the match by 10 wickets.

The selectors gave the team management the best available talent in Australia. It is the management's job to build this set of talented people into a cohesive team. Some of the management methods have not exactly convinced the players. This means management has to work harder to get the players to buy-in, perhaps show some early results of their methods without input from some of the non-believers. Benching them is a big mistake that's going to negatively affect others too. I'm not saying Australia will necessarily lose, but the public and the players will now pay too high a price for such an Australian win.

(Vidooshak is a blogger @ Opinions on Cricket . He was drawn into cricket by Golandaaz as a schoolboy. His bluster overshadows his cricketing ability. He played as a wicket-keeper in a college team but was promptly dropped. The college selection committee had slightly higher standards than Pakistani selectors. He did reasonably well in tennis ball cricket until he was benched for a final game by the team that he captained. To say some of it was due to his opinions would be an understatement of sorts. Regardless, Vidooshak finds time to opinionate relentlessly and lives a vicarious life by watching cricket teams make obvious mistakes. Good news for Vidooshak is that someone always loses a cricket game, someone always gets belted and someone always flops. Vidooshak always looks for an alternative explanation and rarely agrees with mainstream consensus. Needless to say he has no friends, only ‘tolerators’! While not throwing his weight around, Vidooshak does not run marathons or draw pictures, but reads voraciously on all topics, volunteers at local failing schools, is an avid but average golfer and runs an Indian association in mid-west America)

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Australia has sunk to a depth that will take a few series to resolve. Any and all blame for axing talented players or not integrating them successfully must fall with the management. Cricket, and indeed all sport, is spectator. The public pays to watch entertaining players perform and revel when their team wins. It's that simple. Cricket's long term economic muscle improves when teams with flair do well, not machine like robots showing up on the field.

Much like India lost  and a few others, Australia are now onto their second big loss after Andrew Symonds. The conceit of administrators, sometimes selectors and coaches, is amazing. The Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pieterson, Andrew Symonds, Ross Taylor and now Shane Watson episodes are stunning in its impact. What's also stunning is the number of fans that are willing to buy into this theory of "discipline".

A whole host of cricket writers and bloggers seem to hitch on to this bandwagon that believes in the virtues of military-like discipline as a requirement to win sporting contests. Curfews, wellness programs, limits on calories, exercise regimen etc seem to have taken precedence over actual performance and results. It appears that  and  have successfully diverted attention from their failure to deliver by backing their methods over players' lack of buy-in into those methods.

My own corporate experience tells me that leaders fall into this trap of not taking enough ownership for the failure of strategies and instead blame employees for not delivering. It is the leadership's responsibility to bring players on board. To fire players for anything other than performance is thus self-serving and inherently stupid. It is clearly a product of conceit. Clarke semi about-face today suggests a lack of confidence in the stance he has taken. This is a further erosion of his credibility. The less said about Arthur and [Cricket Australia performance chief]  the better.