The writer is a former member of parliament and a Lahore-based freelance columnist. The article was first published in The News on November 18, 2005.
The victory by the Pakistan cricket team in Multan has brought some cheer to a nation still struggling with the enormous consequences of the earthquake. That it happened against the run of the play, and versus a side that had just beaten the Australians, adds extra spice to the delight of victory.There is still a long way to go with two tests remaining but no reason to be miserly with praise. Well done Inzamam and the team. Well done Bob Woolmer for injecting discipline and fighting spirit among the players. Well done Shaharyar Khan for a steady hand at the top and most importantly for standing by the coach and the captain. Cricket politics in Pakistan is as vicious and insidious as the real stuff and sometimes more so. It requires a stout heart and thick skin to put up with all the nonsense that is dished out. Quite often, the complaints you hear or the stories you read are motivated by former administrators who cannot bear the monotony of their dull boring lives.
They still hanker after the glamour (and money making opportunities) that come with the cricket job and use every trick in the book to dislodge their successors. The tried and tested method is to use former players, dismissed officials, sympathetic journalists and moles in the hole, to create a perception of wrong doing or of incompetence. Unreal expectations are also created to make a failure look worse than it is. For example, at the end of the fourth day, England needed 170 odd runs to win with nine wickets standing. By any calculation, they were the favourites. Yet, one heard some pundits saying that Pakistan should win easily. Had we failed, the same people would have gone around saying that it was a terrible loss and made fun of the captain or taken potshots at the coach and certainly directed a fusillade at the Chairman. This is the simple ABC of cricket politics in this country. Keep winning and the hounds are at bay. Start losing and be ready for the kill.
