Send in the clowns

SEPTEMBER 1999 - I would advise Wasim Akram to sacrifice a black goat every three days as long as he is playing for Pakistan and when he has retired, to work his way down to just a couple of goats every three days and so on. Otherwise his goose is likely to be cooked again. Having said that, I am not placing my money on the black goat keeping him out of harm’s way, because what he has been made to go through, even a black elephant put to the chop would have proved quite useless for him.

Most of us begin our days – and end them as well, with the national one liner – ‘you see the problem is.’ Such is the way things go that no longer will you find people here who will tell you what the solution is, simply because the solutions are only available to those who have unquestioned and largely illegal power and vulgar quantities of money, almost always not earned but looted - or if you wish to be discreet, acquired. The problem with us is very simply created by placing the wrong people to do the wrong things for the general ill of the rest of the country. Those who have absolutely no ability of any kind whatsoever, have in the past and will always in the future, hold the most sensitive and powerful posts in the country. Failure to understand even the fundamentals of the job that’s thrust on your puny shoulders, is now a quality that catapults the most mediocre men to fame and riches.

Poor cricket has fared no better than agriculture, electricity, exports or whatever else. It has been our fate that with a few and happy exceptions early on in our national cricket life, the whole structure, its administrators and power brokers have been inept and vain officials who have systematically destroyed the game, bottom upwards and top downwards. Since it’s very hard to build anything and very easy to demolish it, they have been supremely successful. This has given all of them the misconceived notion that they have indeed achieved wonderful results and as is so often the case, there have been any amount of fawning sycophants who have praised their masters without even faintly blushing. In the bargain we have further helped ego-maniacs to believe they are some sort of heaven-sent saviours. At the receiving end of all this have been many cricket players.

Wasim Akram has been more sinned against than any other player. The noose of betting has hung round his neck much in the same fashion as that cursed bird round the ancient mariner. While we have bumbled about launching more probes than all of the European satellites put together, other countries which found some of their lads getting out of line simply went through the business swiftly and efficiently, imposed fines, warnings and whatever else, and carried on. Like a property dispute that goes from one generation to another, we have only poured ridicule on ourselves, year after year, one silly enquiry following another. If there weren’t enough of these ridiculous farces running like worn out records, we even put the ruddy ISI into action. The goon squad who have a natural flair for stupidity, launched spy missions while we were battling for the World Cup. What one would dearly like to know are the minutes, if any indeed were kept, of the intelligent discussions that led to the spooks hitting England and ‘spying’ on their team. If they were hoping that the players apart from selling Dr. A.Q. Khan’s latest formula (for success, glory and human annihilation) were also fixing matches, meeting bookies in shadowy streets and constantly changing cars, trains and planes to escape detection, then I guess they had a disappointing visit. But then hey it’s nice to go on such a wild goose chase, especially if it’s summer, the strawberries are out, the girls are in shorts and there are sales on at Marks & Spenser. Great fun especially when the money comes from the pockets of the poor sods who pay taxes and from loaning sharks who now run this country’s economy or what’s left of it. Whoever ordered the spooks to spy on the team deserves a medal and if there are any left over from the fifty thousand we pinned on everybody and his uncle this summer, who took part in the Pakistan Movement, may it be awarded to those who cooked up this silly caper.

Speaking in Toronto, Wasim Akram is reported to have said it was a mystery to him how he had regained the captaincy. He added that this was the fifth time he had fought back from scratch. The question for us is to pay back the tormentors in the same coin, but we cannot do that because we don’t have the clout, the power or indeed the authority. All we have is perhaps the written word and that’s pretty useless in a country where along with the masses, the rulers are illiterate as well. Why has Wasim been exonerated without the Qayoom report becoming public ? We all hear that the good judge is still on his rough draft so what signal was received by the PCB and from which planet, to help it deduce Wasim’s innocence. If it was going to be a whimsical decision at the end of the day, why put everyone through this nonsense ? Any what about the laughing stock image about Pakistan that has been once again successfully established by its cricketing brains ? Last night, Geoffrey Boycott reporting from Toronto said the Pakistanis selected captains by putting names in a hat and drawing lots. And he’s a great friend of this country ! What’s more, he was, as always, quite right. We are made to look like clowns not by our cricketers but the never-ending line of the game’s power-brokers who constantly compromise us here and all over the world. What’s more, they always get away with it as well. The funny thing is, the whole PCB thing, ad hoc and whatever else, is not legit, but then the laws, such as they are, exist only for the masses who must suffer. As for those fate has placed at the top, it would be a laughing matter except this business is so sad and utterly futile. Cricket is a great game and administering it well, is not exactly rocket science. It’s just our misfortune the way things are and have always been. I know what Skipper Kardar would have done but then he’s not here. Pity.