Pakistani fans need to move on

By Kamran Rehmat/Islamabad

A thin hope: Mohamed Aamer leaving after the final day’s hearing before the ICC tribunal in Doha early this month

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain, a major coalition partner of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), had just pulled the rug from under the ruling party and seemed on course to bring the house down in Islamabad.

Playing down assurances from hockey authorities about redressing the grievance, Akbar said words to the effect: Yahan hakoomat ka pata nahi hota… (here, one does not even know about the government) before leaving little to imagination about the implication.

The PPP, eventually, survived an imminent fall after the party redressed the grievances of MQM.

Removed from the deprived hockey lot are Pakistan’s much pampered cricketers, who provided a spectacle to the world in Doha recently -- and one doesn’t mean with their Iranian-style tie-less suits, which towards the end, had given way to poor choice T-shirts and growing stubbles.

Regardless of the end result what with the International Cricket Council tribunal delaying a decision on their fate, few can deny Salman Butt, Mohamed Asif and Mohamed Aamer have, by their actions, hurt Pakistan more than their cricket careers.

As a result of their dubious conduct, Pakistan’s name has been sullied across at least four continents - the match/spot-fixing charges actually began early last year from a nightmare tour Down Under, travelled to the West Indies for the T20 World Cup before coming to the gates of hell in England last summer.  The infection was palpably felt with the heralding of another unhappy New Year in Qatar.

It is, of course, all very well to indulge in legalese — that tired but refuge-underwritten axiom pertaining to the accused being innocent until proven guilty.

However, circumstantial evidence begs not to be ignored. This isn’t about condemning them prematurely, but the fact that they have shamed Pakistan in how they have been implicated in a scandal of such epic proportion.

Salman Butt, for instance, can harp all he likes about being straight -- the gems pertaining to the Scotland Yard-hauled money from his room being in the realm of a wholesome dowry for his sister and legit cash for an ice cream parlour opening come to mind.

But reportedly, there’s unlovely evidence before the tribunal provided by the News of The World and other accounts that circulated at the time.

However, to the discerning viewer, it was his fixed gaze at the bowling crease when Mohamed Aamer/Mohamed Asif were bowling the no balls-in-question that begs introspection.

The almost certain application is for the fielder to focus on the batsman as the bowler readies to hurl the cherry, not where the bowler’s foot will land. Reports from Doha suggest it was a sticking point.

It also merits attention that the lawyers of Butt and Asif were at odds — a sign perhaps, of the weary trial where the apparent motivation was to save one’s own skin regardless of — and at whose — cost!

To my mind, Butt’s lack of reflex reaction to the damaging allegations of spot-fixing when these first surfaced in England was intriguing. As a keen student of behavioural sciences, it struck me how initially, he failed to even respond to the charges when something of this nature would have aroused the wrath of anyone unfairly slighted.

The Doha rendezvous also provided noticeable contrast. While Butt and Asif declined to comment to the media and looked jaded, Aamer, with an impish grin, was more forthcoming and -- perhaps, given his age -- even uttered tosh like “ache kaam ke liye ja rahe hain” (going for good work) before signing off with hopes for a positive result. Probably, that element of vulnerability in the boy wonder is what induces sympathy from a vast majority. 

An outsider may be forgiven for thinking there’s something inherently wrong with Pakistani cricket lovers, where players with dubious actions and means are treated like heroes but that’s the corollary: so much is forgiven in the cricket-mad land at the altar of bat-and-ball talent that they seem to set little store by integrity and commitment.

The role of the Pakistan Cricket Board in destroying careers is well documented and its current chief Ijaz Butt played a decidedly damaging, even if eccentric, part in the tainted trio’s case.

It may well feed into the worst case scenario for the players — nobody should be fooled into believing that those running the show at the world body will have a soft corner for Pakistan cricket after Butt’s ill-advised comments about the ICC chief, the English team and the trio’s own publicly aired misgivings about the tribunal.

Salman Butt, who choreographed the breaking of a 15-year jinx in defeating Australia in a Test at the start of the summer last year, and being heralded as just the sort of captain Pakistan direly needed, has come across as a vacillating figure unsure of his movement since his implication in a sting operation.

He has chopped and changed lawyers at a frequency that has earned him even the displeasure of his counsels what to talk of detractors.

It is a measure of how Butt has lost his timing that over the weekend, he chose to criticise Shahid Afridi and warm up to Misbah-ul Haq on the issue of leadership at a time when it is already a pot-boiler that has divided the fragile unity of the team. In this, he appears to be no different to the senior Butt, who has single-handedly destroyed Pakistan cricket in little over two years that he has been at the helm.

All things considered, Pakistani fans probably need to move on. Today, they seem desperate to see at least the fast-bowling pair of Asif and Aamer escape a ban to bolster the team, not necessarily, because they believe in their honesty.

As one fan suggested, it is time to back players whose hearts beat for the Pakistani crescent-and-star flag and keep faith in the morrow.

**** The writer can be reached at [email protected]