Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
Like a frightened soul apprehending a swift end looking for a desperate escape route for sheer survival, he just disappeared. He was officially declared "missing". Just one day earlier, he had been an international hero. Playing outstanding cricket for his country. Winning a match for Pakistan with one ball to spare. Now he was the nowhere man.
Nothing can be scarier and sadder than what transpired over the last 48 hours in the life of one Pakistani cricket player---wicket-keeper Zulqarnain Haider. Just a day earlier, he had starred in an extraordinary victory in the fourth ODI against South Africa at neutral-station Dubai, by scoring a crucial undefeated 19 runs to get them to a thrilling victory, and a series leveling triumph at 2-2. All seemed good. At least for that one fleeting moment. One marveled at how the depleted, enervated Pakistanis had so remarkably regrouped despite the humiliating exposes of a disturbing English summer. The already brutally fractured team reeling under never- ending international media scrutiny and police investigations for spot and match fixing, interminable mental trauma, frequent player changes in their diminished squad, squalid allegations----- had miraculously, against massive odds, actually come back to be in the reckoning by taming the much-favored "bookies favorite"-South Africa. But Pakistan had won. And that may have just upset some mathematical calculations of the notorious crime syndicates that have made match-fixing the new financial exchange for international money laundering. Continue reading below
Haider had earlier scored 88 priceless runs in the Birmingham Test against England. Not bad for a rookie. Clearly, the young man had a bright future. Now with his sudden departure, Pakistan would be without a regular wicket-keeper. Rumors abound that he is seeking political asylum in England, but that hardly guarantees him physical security for life. Or for his family back home in Pakistan. But his distress is obvious from the fact that he cleverly masqueraded the need for a SIM card to get his passport released from his team management. Now why would anyone have to be so frantically insecure as to do that? Is this world cricket's most shameful moment?
Expectedly, when Haider surfaced several hours later at London's Heathrow airport, he revealed what we all probably expected -------- he feared for his life. And that of his family. The large unanswered question loomed ominously behind though; why did he not share his trepidations that with his team members? His senior Pakistani team contingent? The Pakistan Cricket Board? Did he trust no one? Not a single soul? Not even his famed PCB and the global managers of the game?
That Haider is seeking political asylum in England after forcibly renouncing his international career at the age of 24 ( perhaps his only source of livelihood) is to me cricket's ultimate nadir; will a cricketer one day a price with his life for the seedy corruption and wrong-doings that has now subsumed it, entrenched itself in its very pores in an everlasting stranglehold? Had not Geoff Lawson, former Pakistan coach, explicitly cited the ghastly menace of outer-world influences that dictated even team-selection? Why was his words warning of serious criminal infringement ignored?
The Pakistan team surely had amazing nerves to be out there still performing in the fifth ODI (which they inevitably lost). It is such a monumental shame if the International Cricket Council (ICC ) has allowed the game of cricket to be reduced into a B-grade stained thriller directed with flawless precision by match-fixing mafia mobs dictating its myriad "fluctuating fortunes". There is no real solid governance, and fear stalks the corridors of five-star lobbies where the players reside. I am sure no one knows what the other guy is up to. In Pakistan, players have entered and exited the team at will, each under bizarre circumstances facing damaging accusations. There are inner factions and feuds accentuated by the fact that the unfortunate players are managed by a thoroughly incompetent cricket administration in the form of Pakistan Cricket Board .To be honest, it is a mammoth achievement that Pakistan has not just played competitive cricket but heroically vanquished its opponents in some games too.
The fact that the PCB is virtually defunct, mired in its own political quagmires and shady transgressions is now fairly well-documented. It is no longer cursory speculation. But frankly , we are wasting precious time by confabulating on PCB's pathetic ways. The ball is now in the court of the ICC. Because cricket's future is now going to be increasingly questioned, what with the World Cup being hosted in the sub-continent early next year. In fact, each and every Pakistan match being played anywhere against anyone is now looked upon with huge suspicion, and quite understandably so. Through its gross ineptness the ICC will soon stand guilty of severely damaging brand cricket itself , because if the viewer believes that match-fixing is rampant, and worse, unchecked and uncontrollable, the games future becomes lost in one dark mushroom cloud.
Whistle -blowers protection plan will help. As will an independent investigative authority not reporting to ICC ( like WADA) which carries out its task secretly and deals with cricketers on its own terms, unlike the ineffective if not altogether impotent body called the Anti- Corruption Bureau of ICC. Accredited official sports agency firms will also make a difference. Clearly, all the grave exposures of the disastrous English summer have hardly dampened the enthusiasm of the well-oiled match fixing lobby. If the latter can now force a regular cricket player in the peak of his international outing into premature retirement, then it is soon going to turn into a monstrous entity, like a Mexican drug cartel which will extract bloody revenge for those who contravene its lordly fiats. Dangerous times.
The ball is in ICC's court. The litmus test for the ICC has arrived. Can it restore Haider's confidence, resurrect his inanimate expectations of his future career, and make him do what he perhaps knows best--- play cricket? Without the fear of a missed call on his mobile phone from a familiar dreaded number.
