“You know, there was a Pakistani cricket team with five county captains, one of a kind in international cricket history. Asif Iqbal was captain at Kent, Zaheer Abbas at Gloucestershire, Intikhab Alam at Surrey, Majid Khan at Glamorgan and Mushtaq Mohammad at Northamptonshire. Son, leading an English County is no mean feat; it takes more than just a good cricketer to get the honour. Not long ago, only gentlemen got that rank, not professional cricketers.”
This, among many was a repeated story I heard my father narrate at an age I could absorb little. But this I understood; cricket was religion and Pakistani cricketers were its idols.
Growing up, I remember my father always speaking in particular about Fazal Mahmood with great love and admiration, a hero of a Pakistan I hadn’t seen. I imagined Fazal as not just being a champion fast bowler but also a really good looking bloke with a charismatic personality, a true poster boy of the time when my father himself was a kid. He often recalled how “Hanif Mohammad cycled from Garden (a municipality of old Karachi) to the National Stadium Karachi, to open the innings for Pakistan on the morning of a Test match. His mother packed his tiffin that he shared with his brothers at lunch.”
I knew this was the stuff of legends. There was an air of pride in my father’s voice as he reminisced about Pakistan cricket.
As an integral part of most households across the country, in cricket, people found solace in times of crisis and amplified exuberance in times of joy. It was not just a sport; it was a lifestyle, injected into the veins without a conscious effort. Kids are extremely impressionable and cricket had a large imprint on the youth of Pakistan.
While Vivian Richards was the undisputed king of cricket in our home, each family member had a Pakistani idol.
My two eldest brothers, being a decade older than me, had seen the glory days of Javed Miandad and Imran Khan and had illuminated their hearts with the duo. The eldest was a loyal Karachiite and maintained that it was Javed who was the grit and brains behind Pakistan cricket, accusing Imran of provincial nepotism and favoritism in selection. On the contrary, his younger brother was in awe of the man Imran Khan was; idolising Khan was always self explanatory. The third in line was our only brother who graduated from club level to play first-class cricket in Pakistan. He was a Shoaib Mohammad fan. Shoaib, son of the original little master Hanif, was consistently among runs and technically very sound, but also painfully slow. He was, unjustly, the victim of many jokes because of his lack of aggression; one could draw certain parallels to Misbah-ul-Haq of today.
You can be born in a religion but it does not necessarily give you faith. Belief comes from one’s own experiences in life, a prayer that is answered, a miracle that is witnessed or an event that instills absolute conviction in your heart. One man that immediately became my cricketing deity was Wasim Akram, he was my poster boy. He could do no wrong; I celebrated his conquests and defended his failures. I fought and guarded him even when I knew he had gravely erred and sometimes even betrayed.
The arguments in the house were fierce and ended up in heated discussions on the dinner table. But like religion, it was to each his own and we were taught to respect differing opinions by our father who usually remained neutral and almost always had the last word. Our home was a reflection of a typical Pakistani household of the ’80s.
Quantum Physics has revolutionised how we interpret the physical world, giving us insight into the minutest inner workings of the world we live in. A principle of Quantum Physics, called the ‘observer effect’, states that the observer and the observed cannot be separated. The theory argues that the very act of observing an object or event, changes it in infinitesimal ways. Given this, in essence, every single person watching a cricket match is not just observing it, but is also contributing to its result. The theory, which is often cause for debate, applies well to what Pakistan cricket is experiencing, at least the mental side of things.
India was on a tour of Pakistan in 1989 when I first met cricket’s greatest modern-day icon, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He was visiting my uncle’s home along with Ajay Sharma. Hardly the cricketers that excited me or ones I knew. Although, meeting Sachin was immediately a little special. He was a bit shy but his reputation preceded him, plus at only 16, he seemed closer to my age than other cricketers. Later on that tour, he was hit on the mouth by Waqar Younis but continued to bat in a blood-soaked shirt. Sachin’s sanctity was immediately established.
Fast forward 24 years later. Tendulkar received the largest and most emotional cricketing farewell in memory and his retirement speech was of a man with extreme humility and gratitude. Without glorifying his own achievements, he recognised the contribution of his wife, parents, siblings, coaches, doctors, peers, friends, the entire country and its media made toward his success.
Sachin was always given the accolades of a higher God among other cricketing deities created in India. When match referee Mike Denness reprimanded six Indian players in a Test match including a one-match suspension to Sachin for ball tampering, the entire Indian nation got behind their heroes and burnt their opponents to ashes, literally. Indian cricketers are best looked after by their people, making sure the men that excel at such craft are highly respected and provided with an extraordinary lifestyle. It’s a sign of a progressing civilization, a stark contrast to their neighbours.
The life of Sachin has been the polar opposite of the stars produced by Pakistan in the same period. Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf and some of the others were not as appreciated and valued as they should have been. While some of them are to blame for the terrible mistakes they made, the entire nation has played their part in the unfolding of the events; the cricket board, the media and the relentless public.
Misbah-ul-Haq is the highest run scorer so far this year in combined international cricket and is the only Pakistani currently ranked in the top ten batsmen of ODI and Test cricket. Mohammad Hafeez is the world’s best ODI and second best T20 all-rounder. Shahid Afridi is also ranked in the top 10 and top five all-rounders in the world of ODIs and T20s. There is enough in those official rankings for these men to be loved and respected by everyone in a country where cricket has also been a religion. But reality is a little different. The three, along with being the highest-ranked and most experienced cricketers in the country, are also publicly persecuted most.
PCB's Governing Board member Shakeel Sheikh recently called Misbah a “geedar” (jackal) on live television. Mohammad Yousuf said Afridi should be the first player to be dropped. A large part of the Pakistani public and media believes that Hafeez is a liability. Most stakeholders in the country feel at least one if not all three need to be shown the door.
Misbah is criticised for a low strike rate and unimaginative captaincy, while Afridi and Hafeez are slandered for their batting failures. There might be some truth in these accusations but they don’t justify the media and public crucifixion these men go through after every series, unless the ICC rankings are proven to be completely flawed and their algorithms dysfunctional.
My brothers think that Afridi has given up on batting and considers himself as a pure bowler, which he most certainly has become. And Hafeez does not believe he can purely play as a bowler thus insists on batting up the order, whereas he too has evolved into a bowler more than anything else. I agree.
A Pakistani television video clip doing the rounds on social media shows how the Indian public, media and cricket board had helped Sachin achieve all that he has, while Pakistani cricketers such as Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan were not allowed to fulfill their potential. After hundreds of shares and thousands of views, the most liked comment came from a supposed master’s graduate from a university in Lahore. It said “Indians play for their country and Pakistanis play for money not for country.”
There is an air of negativity in the country’s environment that inflicts everyone; all connected to the same massive body of cosmic reality. While Pakistani cricketers being observed have disappointed, their observers have been as bad and both continue to create each other’s subsistence. The condition of Pakistan is a result of the collective consciousness of an entire nation.
If Saeed Ajmal or Mohammad Irfan appeared on the international scene 10 years earlier, or if Mohammad Amir had received better guidance, Pakistan might have had a few more prodigies destined for glory. However, a team that had five county captains now seems a distant memory. A home that had pictures of young Fazal Mehmood, Imran Khan and Wasim Akram on its wall is now barren. In a team historically filled with super stars, Afridi is the only national celebrity. The regression of the heroes of Pakistan cricket is evident and the team's future appears gloomy.
My niece and nephews were also born in a home with the same religion but they are not being able to find faith, they lack belief. Pakistan has failed to provide them with a hero. Incidents like the spot-fixing fiasco leave a big impression on the kids of Pakistan, and the cursing of its captain on national television does not help either. Amongst all the problems faced by team, it is the lack of inspiration for its youth that is most alarming and needs to be dealt with caution.
There were many who just weren't convinced even when Pakistan had notched up 176 in the second T20 against South African in Cape Town on Friday.
Few things describe the deteriorating state of cricket and of Pakistan as a nation better than the wise words of American philosopher William James Durant: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”