By Kamran Rehmat/Islamabad
Ijaz Butt, the chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board, has done it again. It is hard to find a single individual in the South Asian nation, who courts more controversy than the burly figure.
This time Butt has even outdone the hitherto unmatched king of controversy, Shoaib Akhtar, by openly saying the pace ace had no chance of donning Pakistani colours again. The arbitrary judgment was handed down just as a desperate Akhtar began to recuperate after undergoing liposuction (he lost upto 13kgs in the process).
Doing the figurative equal of the surgeon’s knife, Butt upped the pain barrier for Akhtar by declaring that with a history of fitness problems and emerging crop of young pacers, the world’s fastest bowler was a lost cause.
To be sure, it is difficult to argue with Butt’s summation on merit but that is beside the point. The fact is selection or non-selection of any player is not Butt’s call. Or else why would there be a selection committee? Surely, performance on the field ought to be the criterion.
Secondly, whatever argument one might have in Akhtar’s case, bringing him down by making such insensitive remarks in public, especially at a time when the fast bowler happens to be at the lowest ebb is uncalled for. (Days later, Butt made a feeble attempt to deny his comments by blaming the media in what was clearly an afterthought).
Having followed the sport for more than three decades - a golden period in the game’s history in terms of fast bowling prowess - one cannot recall if another paceman has resorted to liposuction in a desperate attempt to get back into business.
Leaving aside the merit of the op, it’s a cinch Akhtar will now have to deal with greater trauma than he had probably bargained for when he went under the knife.
Butt is such a walking disaster that even someone as controversial as Akhtar is evoking sympathy amongst Pakistanis, who had otherwise tired of the regular derailing of the “Rawalpindi Express” - a sobriquet that the paceman earned for his thunderbolts.
But to return to the Butt of all jokes — although one suspects cricket-mad Pakistanis no longer see the funny side of the supremo’s surname — there is just no escape from his inept hand at presiding over what is less a cricket board and more a latter-day Alice in Wonderland reincarnation.
Indeed, it would be difficult to enlist all of Butt’s shenanigans in this space even though he has been at the helm just a shade over a year. Still to make sense of the “thundering typhoons” - as Captain Archibald Haddock in Tintin would likely have described them - that have hit Pakistan Cricket, one cannot ignore the obvious.
When Butt took over the PCB sails, he immediately set about the proverbial cat among the pigeons by describing the national team’s foreign coach Geoff Lawson as “useless” before pledging to keep him on for the contracted period in what appeared to be a diabolical move to oust him.
A rattled Lawson sought a meeting with Butt to clear the air about the apparent loss of confidence in his ability. Within five minutes of the “clash of minds”, the Australian was shown the door and as if that was not embarrassing enough, Lawson had to seek the good offices of the High Commission in Islamabad to get his full dues.
As many disillusioned Pakistani fans can now recall, it was just the beginning of an out and out silly season even by the usual standards of the sport in Pakistan.
Since then, Butt has been involved in several rows that has seen him disclose International Cricket Council thinking on the rebel Indian Cricket League case which he wasn’t supposed to divulge, lose hosting rights of the 2011 World Cup for which he went unprepared at a Dubai meeting, enact a stunning flip-flop when he suddenly announced to fight the world’s governing body over hosting rights (including paying QC Mark Gay a sum of £70,000 for just serving a legal notice!) before retracting the case.
Butt also indulged in hiring and firing some of the country’s respected stars after he went on a spree of high profile appointments (most of those sacked were actually rendered so impotent they had to resign to save face).
Former captains Javed Miandad and Aamer Sohail and spin wizard Abdul Qadir all had to resign few months into their jobs as director-general, director game development and chief selector, respectively over interference from the PCB boss or his minions.
Miandad returned to the job only after Butt promised full authority and enhanced fees but while the batting great has got the money he is nowhere near the driving seat.
But if one were to put a finger on one definitive “suicide” attack Butt has unleashed on Pakistan cricket in these times of terror (minus the jacket), it is his musical chairs surrounding the team’s leadership.
This year alone has seen national captaincy change hands three times (Mohammed Yousaf is actually the fourth after Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi in different formats).
After a much fancied Pakistani side under Younis Khan lost the semifinal of the Champions Trophy last month, Butt held a detailed meeting with vice-captain Shahid Afridi to discuss team matters and a closed-door session with nine players bent on rebelling against the skipper.
What was conspicuous in all this by its very absence was any engagement with the beleaguered captain, a fact not lost on the cricket public and experts, who blasted the demeaning exercise.
With the heat rising, Butt enacted another U-turn and announced Younis Khan would remain captain till the 2011 World Cup but as events unfolded, it became clear the PCB chief had no desire to actually support the skipper as the same motley crew of dissenters who had met him a month ago in secret appeared to underperform against New Zealand this month and therefore, undermine Khan, who has since taken a break from the game.
Everyone and his aunt noticed how Butt was quick to accept Khan standing down over “loss of command” even though given Pakistan cricket’s history of the absurd, by no means may have one heard the last on Khan-the-skipper, especially if stop-gap arrangement Mohamed Yousaf turns out to be a dud on a difficult New Zealand tour.
With the circus around clown town, it is hard to imagine Pakistan had won the T20 World Cup only five months ago.
Certainly, no prizes for guessing who should take the clown crown.
n The author can be reached at kaamyabi@gmail.com
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