All the King’s Men

Cricket, it seems, is no longer a gentleman’s game. It is neither played by gentlemen nor managed by people who believed in fair play and sportsmanship. Gone are the days when batsmen used to walk having nicked a ball to the keeper or an opposing captain overruling the umpire’s decision in favor of the batsman who had been erroneously given out by the ump. Even the age old, and much respected, tradition of sparing the bowlers from facing the deadly bouncers of their fellow pacemen is no more. These days, cricket is all about statistics. Rankings, bowling and batting averages and more importantly ROI in terms of cricket boards’ investment and that of the sponsors is the name of the game. Cricket like most spectator sports is no longer a game between two sides or two countries. Cricket stadiums around the world have transformed into battlegrounds where pride and prejudice is the name of the game. Games are won and lost for the sake of the country for the country and by the country!

Talk about countries and we are bound to move on to continents and when continents meet the world comes into play. And we all know what happens when the entire world and their brother gets involved including the Big Brother, of course! And that is what worries me the most! History tells us that every time the Big Brother got involved in affairs of the world, no matter how mundane, it always end up in the formation of a world body or the other, firmly wrapped around the Big Brother’s pinky. United Nations, International Cricket Council, Organization of Islamic Countries, are prime examples of worldly bodies that hop, skip and jump on their masters’ voices. Yet, we are all led to believe that these illustrious bodies are there to bring order to our otherwise chaotic existence. It is generally believed that man, if left alone will cause mischief, and if this mischief goes unnoticed, the world order would come tumbling down like the poor lass who went up the hill. And we all know what happened to that poor girl. But wait; in the world according to BUSH, it is rather difficult to disambiguate the word mischief. These days one man’s mischief is other man’s virtue. A man taking up arms to protect his freedom is a terrorist, detention of uninvited soldiers is kidnapping, and a badly bruised cricket is all what is required to sink a nation into ignominy and perpetual shame.

The funny thing is that despite having different composition in terms of human resources, dissimilar mandates, and unalike sources of income, these worldly bodies function more or less in the same manner. They are insensitive to the needs of their clientele; their functioning is unilateral with a strong tilt towards the desires of the major contributors and thus rendering themselves totally useless when it comes to decision making in situations which requires backbone coupled with a spine. United Nations, and it goes without saying, has let us down day in and day out. Whilst Israelis planes were playing havoc with the lives and emotions of millions of Lebanese citizens, all UN could do was to hold one meeting after another till such time that they ran out of reasons to hold meetings. ICC’s handling of the Daryl Hair issue is no different. Like Israel, Daryl Hair was convinced that he was on the right side of the law; he was further convinced, in his mind that Pakistani team is nothing but a bunch of cheats and that mischief was in the air on the fourth day of the final test between England and Pakistan. The pre-emption, therefore, was pre-determined and the verdict ordained. This plurality of the adjectives gave Daryl Hair the license to kill the spirit of the game; maim the morale of a team representing a nation and not to mention leaving a permanent hurt in the hearts and minds of millions of people who watched with awe as Daryl Hair contemptuously removed the bails and lumbered to his comfy little office in the pavilion. And ICC just stood there or in case of Mike Proctor just sat there in a stupefied state.

The sad part is that while millions of people like you and me were watching the hectic activity in the balcony of Lords cricket ground in a state of stupor, two men sitting in the lounge knew exactly what they had done that day: they had made history! Had Daryl Hair been paying attention to other historic moments in the recent times he should have realized that he may have waved his Stars and Stripes a little too early. History making, these days, is a laborious process and the placenta, at times, is too hard to handle. Surely, Malcolm Speed has come to Daryl’s rescue yet again, but this time it is not as simple as it was the first time around. There are no bio-mechanics at play here and there are no replays available to bail Daryl out. All he has on his side is the law, which is open to interpretation.

While we can go on and on as to who did what and while we all waited like expectant fathers pacing outside the labor room, the powers to be added insult to the injury. The much touted Friday inquisition to be chaired by everyone’s beloved Ranjan Madugalle was called off indefinitely citing ‘personal reasons’. Surely, this last minute cop out by Madugalle orchestrated by ICC to prevent losses to ECB and of course the sponsors may yield the desired monetary benefits but if would be futile on part of everyone to think that all would be forgiven and forgotten once two teams face each other in the field. One must not forget that it may have been Daryl who may have pulled the plug, but it was Duncan Fletcher who threw the first stone. Had it not been the case, Michael Trescothick would not have spent most of the day glued to his binocular watching every little move that the Pakistani fielders made in the field. And let’s not forget that it was Pietersen who drew Daryl’s attention to the scuffed up ball suggesting fowl play. But as Good Samaritan we should not delve into matters that may antagonize our hosts and jeopardize favorable public opinion that Pakistani team enjoys in England at the moment.

While all this wheeling and dealing is going on behind closed doors, or place far away from public access another catastrophe has struck the world of cricket. One of my all times favorite cricketer Waseem Hassan Raja has moved on. May Allah rest his soul and give strength to his aggrieved family to bear this irreparable loss. Indeed cricket has lost one of its most flamboyant, stylish and above all liberated cricketer of his time. The only consolation of sorts is that he is not here to witness this circus!