By trying to be injudiciously self-evasive, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and their sycophantic officer-bearers have started to trace their steps to fool’s paradise. Arrogance, hotchpotch policies, confused mix of even planning.
Abruptness, brazen lies contrary to the documentary evidence, intolerance to criticism, complete dearth of vision and plans for the future, unnecessary and often irrational justifications, paucity of authenticity and unabated self-denials, indignant enough to challenge common man’s rationality.
Pakistan cricket is vanishing into a dream, on course to ‘self destruction’ and ‘neo-fascism.’ Interesting it is that the infallible PCB chairman is recorded during a telephonic conversation to have committed saying that it was during his times that Pakistan won the Twenty20 World Cup in 2009 and also qualified for the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy for the first time ever.
Pakistan qualified for the semi-finals twice before, once against New Zealand in Kenya in 2001-02 and th other against the West Indies in England in 2004-05; I hope his representatives stop questioning the intellectuality of the often well-read people otherwise it is going to be a poor reflection on their abilities as ever.
2009 was a year that should better be forgotten as it saw rise of a new incompetent cricket’s elite, the bureaucratic chairman, as his age goes, on the other side of the midnight, and so many puppet masters trying to pin down the truthful analysis of Pakistan’s deterioration, engineering coups, rebutting their own claims and the ensuing musical chairs when directors came in and went, fast-track, circular politics so that in January 2010 we have arrived at the beginning.
Mr Ijaz Butt’s tenure so far, and it likely to continue, so it seems, has been nothing more than an act of mercy killing of the soul and spirit and the real essence of the Pakistani game, and also accentuating a mongrel governing process. Ironically, instead of piling up the load of every wrong on the previous regime, that certainly didn’t comprise of angels, and not really the children of lesser god, Mr Ijaz Butt with his magnitude, a ‘glorious past’ as he averaged 19.92 in Tests as an opener, was welcomed at the first place because he stood up like a statue of liberty in the hollowness of the pyramids of self-destruction that Dr Nasim Ashraf’s government had left for him.
The culture dominated by ‘self-servers’ needs to be regressed if not abolished if ever Pakistan cricket is to be rejuvenated. It has been mentioned recently that the 2009 was an unforgettable year for Pakistan cricket since Mr Ijaz Butt worked wondrously despite being haunted by the unforgiving geo-political circumstances. I, at least like Aamir Sohail, the former Pakistan captain, get puzzled that while Dr Nasim Ashraf was dispensing money like a thick water stream why was Mr Ijaz Butt quieting being the chairman of the audit committee, being the member of the board of governors. And why didn’t he try taking the previous regime and his predecessor to task if he was sure that board’s exchequer had been floundered? Already it is beginning to shape up as a scam. It looks, all the beneficiaries have come to the PCB voluntarily or on by the choice of the ‘towering’ Mr Ijaz Butt. And he hates nepotism, jobbery or any influence directly or indirectly brought on him; the prime example is the presence of his brother-in-law Mr Mohammad Naeem as the financial advisor despite his appointment not being recommended by the board of governors to go beyond the month of November 2009. And his travelling to different countries either to sign the MOUs or make financial deals and the lucrative daily allowances is part of the austerity drive being trumpeted by Mr Ijaz Butt and his handpicked management team. Isn’t nepotism? It seems that the PCB is someone’s personal property and almost a colony of a private enterprise.
There seems to be present a healthy tradition of chicanery. And, quite rudderless and hopelessly Mr Ijaz Butt is trying to prevail over the judicious criticism against his failed regime? After this recent defeat at the Sydney Ground, it is evident that cricket is a story of betrayal. Pakistan cricket’s philosophy isn’t as simple as it seems. There is a well-defined skepticism about it, as a product of a sequence of inept management teams administering the game since the mid-1990s. There is distrust towards ethical and professional values, especially when there are high expectations concerning societal demands, institutions and authorities which are unfulfilled. Since 2003 the top tier PCB managements weren’t really bad; they were the worst, each having better credentials to surpass the other. They were completely oblivious of classical Greek and Roman Cynics regarding virtue as the only necessity for happiness, and saw virtue as entirely sufficient for attaining happiness.
It appears, almost throughout Pakistan cricket’s period of disillusionment, impressed by Geoffrey Chaucer and Francois Rabelais used irony as a tool to ridicule the basic working methodology, insulting the Pakistani game and reviving cynicism. Their policies communicated the low opinions of certain manifestations of human nature. People like Dr. Nasim Ashraf presumably knew the price of everything and the value of nothing and in the Pakistani game contrary to George Orwell’s hypothesis that defined cynicism as the direct opposite of fanaticism, this ruling elite stood up like mummies drenched with grandiosity, not allowing patriotism, truth and progress penetrating parts of mass consciousness.
PCB’s regime led by Mr Ijaz Butt went a step further his team working with an attitude of distrust towards the social environment rejected the need to be socially involved. Cricket’s unpredictability and a visible stagnation in Pakistan is a product of bad governance and the one where political engagement has no option but to be overtly blinded.
Mr Ijaz Butt’s start was promising, looking self righteous about the need to expose cricket’s inherent hypocrisy: to point out breaches between the ideals and the practice. And most candidly, I must admit, that unless I am struck by the same bolt of lightning that had struck Mr Ijaz Butt and made him chairman of the PCB aged 70 plus, it is a dead certainty that I am going to end up working as clinician, and at least looked up to in the more respectable circles. I pray that I am not party to mercy-killing of Pakistan cricket ever.
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