Pakistan! ...Doing the groundwork ...New Scoring... a statistical look Global Gallery, Sept 6, 2004 Martin Bronstein, writes this month from his home in London. © 2004 All rights reserved. Mansoor Zaman photo© 2004, Debra Tessier,

PAKISTAN RECOVER
Congratulations to Pakistan on their continuing recovery from being nowhere to once again being a force in the world of squash. They were seeded to win the World Junior team Championships and they did with very little trouble, retaining the title they won 18 months ago. It is heartening to see this once great squash nation climbing back into international prominence. The blame for a lack of a Pakistani player in the top twenty can be squarely placed on the shoulders of the Pakistani governing body, who after nearly forty years of domination starting with Hashim Khan and going through such players as Qamar Zaman, Hiddy Jahan, Mohibulla Khan, Gogi Alaudin to the true greatness of Jahangir Khan and ending with Jansher Khan, thought they ruled the squash world by divine right and forgot to put any junior delevelopment in place. The result was that once Jansher had ended his turbulent reign, to give way to Peter Nicol, there simply were no new players in the Pakistani pipeline.

Jahangir and his former coach Rehmat both offered their services as did Jansher, but the PSF were totally out of focus. I remember for the Junior World’s in Princeton in ’98 suddenly coming across Jahangir who told me he was the manager of the Pakistan team. When I asked him when he was appointed he replied: “Three weeks ago.” So much for PSF planning. They have been trying to rectify the situation and their recent triumphs in the junior team championships means that they are getting results. But as of the September PSA rankings, Pakistan’s top ranked player is Mansoor Zaman at number 22 followed by Shahid Zaman at 39 and Farrukh Zaman at 50. So it will be some years before the Pakistan seniors will emulate their junior counterparts.

AN UNBEATABLE YANK? WHERE?
Although the US team did not set the world on fire in Pakistan, did you notice that ONE American player went right through the tournament, not only unbeaten, but giving his opponents a bit of a thrashing. The US Number one Chris Gordon was unbeaten throughout the tournament, steamrollering Jahii of Iran for the loss of five points, Nafiizwan of Malaysia, 3/0, Simpson of England 3/1, Brechbul of Switzerland for the loss of just two points and then finished off the tournament by beating Dick Lau of Hong Kong for the loss of ten points. I don’t know for sure but I am fairly certain that no other American has ever done that in a world championship.

It’s another confirmation that hard work has paid off, Gordon having traveled the world, entering minor tournaments, going through the pains of qualifying and generally toughening up his match mentality. Let’s hope the USSRA are keeping an eye on him and giving him as much aid as they can to help him travel and compete. From this viewpoint he looks like a very good investment indeed.

MANY A TRUE WORD……
Last month when reviewing Playing the Game by Chris Lincoln, I compared the US college approach to sports to that of leading Brit universities. I wrote, facetiously, that whereas US universities have superb facilities and a professional coaching staff, I doubted whether the Oxford University team even had a coach. Well dang my hide if I didn’t bump into Ben Garner at the English Open, (where he pushed John White to five games), and asked him about his time at Oxford University. He played at number one, natch, and when I asked him if that great seat of learning had a squash coach he said no! There was no-one in charge! Mind you he said that when Oxford toured the US, they won most of their matches…..

ELEVEN POINTS – GOOD OR BAD?

So the new scoring system is underway in Hong Kong. So what? Has it affected the sort of squash played or made a major difference in the length of matches? Now I would ask you to pardon me for a few paragraphs as I free myself from my own verbal prison of thinking that statistics is the last refuge of the terminally boring.

In the first round in Hong Kong this month there were 16 matches which encompassed 63 games and chalked up 638 minutes of play, which equates to 10.12 minutes per game and 39.87 minutes per match.

The second round, where one would expect harder fought matches, there were eight matches encompassing 32 games taking a total of 379 minutes: giving 11.84 minutes per game and 47.37 minutes per match.

In the quarters, the four matches (17 games) took a total of 211 minutes: 12.41 minutes per game, 52.7 minutes per match.

(The total for the tournament up to the semis is 28 matches, 112 games over 1,228 minutes. That averages to 43.85 minutes per match, 10.96 minutes per game).

BUT A YEAR AGO….
Now by themselves the above statistics are meaningless. To get some idea of the effect that the new scoring system has had, we have to compare it to another major tournament. How about the World Open in Pakistan last year ?

In the second round in Pakistan the 16 matches encompassed 63 games and took 867 minutes, which is 13.76 minutes per game and 54.18 minutes per match. That compares with the 39.87 in the round of 16 this year in Hong Kong.

In the third round the eight matches consisting of 31 games took 470 minutes, 15.16 minutes per game and 58.75 per match.

The quarters averaged out to 17.63 minutes per game, 64.66 minutes per match.

The totals for last year’s World Open matches are: 14.48 minutes per game, 56.33 minutes per match.

Yes, the new scoring does shorten the matches, which was the PSA’s purpose and the average match now comfortably sits inside the hour mark, which tv producers will just love. In the 2003 World Open quarters the average was over the hour mark at 64.66 minutes. In the 2004 Cathay Paficic in Hong Kong the quarters averaged 52.7 minutes. QED.

CONCLUSION:
One final statistic before I bore you completely to death: PSA changed the scoring from 15 to 11, a reduction of 26.6 percent. The effect was to reduce the match average from 56.33 minutes to 43.85, which equates to a reduction of 22.26 percent. What does this prove? Simply that it has been a slow summer and I have had too much time on my hands. Don’t worry friends, I have just thrown the calculator out of the window.

THE US OPEN
Sorry folks I won’t be in Boston for the US Open (Ron Beck will be standing in for me), but I was there last year when Nick Matthew made his breakthrough win against Ong Beng Hee and then this year confirmed his coming of age by beating Joe Kneipp in the English Open. Since then he’s picked up scalps galore. And now he has reached the final of the Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong. He was never going to beat Thierry Lincou, a huge local favourite because of his Oriental ancestry, but reaching the final of a major Super Series event that featured Nicol, Power, White and Palmer, not to mention Beachill and Willstrop, is yet another sign that Matthew is a serious contender.