Confucius Rules

OCTOBER 1997 - By and large, Pakistan has one cricket team of eleven people but hundreds of professional intriguers who run the game, each more ruthless and tenacious as the next one and determined to win at all costs. It’s always been hard to follow the cricket act outside the grounds because it’s so complex. Over the years, I have continued to make one faux pax after another. I have never been able to know at any given point who is on whose side and who is supporting who and who is stabbing who. Invariably, cricket affairs being murky, I ended up saying the wrong thing at the right time in the wrong place.

There is the long and unending line of technocrats, bureaucrats, generals and judges who make up the ever changing cast of cricket pundits, the whirling inner circle within other circles of the game. There are the entrepreneurs, scam-masters, wheeler dealers and lay abouts who hitch a ride, every now and then on the cricket wagon, make money, jet all over the globe, watch a lot of cricket, go to all the parties, have a little naughty fun on the side and float away into the night. There are the ex cricketers, who refuse to quit. Once out of the middle, they plant themselves in the middle of anything and everything. There is the glamouratti who somehow are always at all the parties and Gulf extravaganzas. Not to be left behind are the journalists, ready for a deal with their pens, changing sides, loyalties and opinions at the mere suggestion of an indefinite hint. There is the Karachi press which since the time of Alexander been after the Punjab players and the Punjab press which is out to lynch every Karachi player who speaks good Urdu. There is, to confound the situation further, the foreign press, which is after our press, our team, our women, our board and our country, all at the same time.

With the scene changing every minute, it is no surprise that people like me not gifted with clairvoyant skills go on making the most awful mistakes. For instance I have never known, at any given time, whose side Ifti was on, if indeed he was on any side other than his own. Even more difficult was, is and will always be, Munir Hussain. Just when you thought he was gone, he was back. Did he ever go away ? Obviously not. And Chisty Mujahid who chews the English language like a half done steak. Who’s man is he ? Gen. Zahid Ali Akbar, Shahid Rafi, Zulfiqar Ali Bokhari, to name three. Who did they ever represent ? And what about all the Managers ? Was Mushy with the Board or not ? And Inti. Was he the establishment’s man, a rebel with a cause or no cause at all ? And Bucha, Rehan, Jalil. Who got them in and who got them out ? And Ehtesham. Who threw him on us ? Who could ever tell. And praising Omer Kureishi to Chisty, would it get you a smile or a scowl ? Depending on that you could assume they were friends or enemies at the time, but that situation could and would change in minutes. And Asif Iqbal. Was he with Sikander Bakht or was Bakht with Haroon and Haroon was not with Bakht or Asif but with Bobby who was Abbasi’s man. And if you were to meet Er..Tariq Rahim and gush about Bobby, you’d have Er..Tariq Rahim giving you the third degree and Bobby being Abbasi’s man could just as easily tell you a thing or two about Wasim Raja, who was with the Board, but then one day he was not. And what about Majid Khan ? Would he tell you anything at all ? Unlikely.

I could also never figure out whether Haseeb Ahsan and Arif Abbasi were friends or not and if they weren’t, whose friend was Haseeb Ahsan anyway ? Was he with Zaheer Abbas and dead set against Arif Abbasi ? I haven’t the foggiest notion. There was a time when Bobby asked me to ‘support’ Abbasi because Abbasi was a good bloke. I couldn’t do a thing about it, because I didn’t know what I could write in his favour which would not incriminate me with half a dozen other blokes on the murky cricket scene. Criticising or praising anyone was, is and will always be, a precarious profession but many have made money from the very same thing. For me at least, in the end, it was simply safer to wax eloquently about turnips instead.

Does this help the cause of cricket ? I suppose it does. For every player in the side there are a hundred plotters outside, plotting. The group which is in power is mercilessly searching for scum-stories to topple their rivals and when in power, are done in by the ousted ones or by new conquerors of the rubbish-heap. It is quite mad and complicated. Each Board has inherited bankruptcy, made billions only to be replaced by another Board which has immediately announced bankruptcy, made billions and is ousted. For every selected team, there have been two teams that should have been selected but were not because you know why. No team has ever left our shores without a controversy. No team has been selected without a scandal. Every manager we have ever sent was incompetent, which is why he was sent in the first place. For every thing that happens or does not, there are a few hundred theories. The administration of cricket has more plots and intrigues than the collective history of mankind.

But at the end of the day, the cover drive is still a beautiful thing to watch. And that’s the redeeming part of cricket and that’s all that matters.