Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
Last Saturday, one awoke to another round of spot-fixing allegations, now appearing religiously in regular fortnightly installments. If they promise to sustain the revelations at these intervals, we have the biggest Super Saturday in the making. Sponsors better book your spots fast ( pun intended). What made the entire episode an astounding, even amusing , audacious spectacle was that this supposed twist was being played out even as the world was still recovering from Veena Malik's soliloquy about match-fixing and the involvement of just about anybody who possesses a mobile phone in Pakistan.
To make matters mighty suspenseful, this time Pakistan actually won the third ODI match against England at the Oval, which I am sure must have thrown several Scotland sleuths in the yard. Pakistan was exporting a new betting product ; spot-fixing dressed in a national flag, embodying the nasty chicanery with a victorious hue, thus killing two birds with one stone, which included the poor victims Andrew Strauss & co. In fact, spot-fixing is so easy that even the umpire, so far considered rather a sacrosanct saint in white in the middle, could be up to his own tricks with that diabolical, unpredictable finger of his . Umar Gul's sensational spell was overshadowed by his skipper's lazy, sloppy, doleful run-out that would have embarrassed even former captain Inzaman-ul-Haq. Continue reading below
That the Pakistan Cricket Board denied everything as titillating tabloid trash was hardly surprising. Ejaz Butt, the PCB big-wig has mastered the art of abusing the most frequently maligned English word in Pakistan these days-----allegations. His standard poker-faced denial is: These are only allegations, and a figment of repugnant residual sediment in some decadent mind. They are all rubbish, until proven to the contrary. My chaps are all paragons of virtue wrapped in realms of pristine pure silk of morality. The only thing that Butt did not do was to blame US President Barack Obama for siding with the Indian bookies over the Pakistani ones. Clearly, US diplomacy is working.
But Butt knows how to kick butt. He went characteristically public with a pugilistic punch, hitting just below the Marks & Spencer logo on the underwear; actually it is the England players who took big sums of money from Indian and assorted bookies to ensure that they would be able to afford Victoria Beckham's lingerie line for their wives/girl-friends/mistresses. Strauss was understandably stressed out by that blistering "allegation" ( that darned word all over again ) and threatened to take Butt to the cleaners, which seemed like a good laundry-exercise amidst the soiled exposes. Unfortunately, Butt came up with a deceptive googly befitting the controversial Danish Kaneria, by stating that he was only coating what the bookies had quoted. At the time of writing, the situation is ( to use our 1970s All India Radio favorite) " tense but under control". Strauss clearly has had the last straw.
What I fear is the sense of deja vu , the kind that happened to Ekta Didi's evening crunchy wheat-biscuits at 9 pm, should another expose involving whatever remains of the untainted-unpainted players in the Pakistan team occur with insouciant ease this Saturday again. We might ourselves just say it even before Mr Butt does-----Allegation! Allegations! And Butt might just soon be giving us sermons with a sardonic dismissive countenance on why the "Sun" has long set on the British empire. I am expecting Butt to next state that this is British PM David Cameron's revenge on Pakistan for rebuking his " export of terror" remark, using his ticklish tabloids to play truant.
Stay tuned, long after Friday Night Lights as the week-end begins. Expect the expected.
