The recent revelations about our “spot-fixing” cricketers have left the whole Pakistani nation shocked.
LAHORE: The recent revelations about our “spot-fixing” cricketers have left the whole Pakistani nation shocked, horrified, embarrassed and deeply humiliated. The correct course would be for the head of the PCB to immediately announce their suspension and recall those allegedly involved to face an open, independent and impartial enquiry to be followed by severe and exemplary punishment to the guilty and honourable reinstatement to the innocent. If necessary, the rest of the tour and all further international commitments should be cancelled until we have thoroughly investigated and eliminated this whole sordid business of match-fixing which has blighted our cricket for some 20 years now. It is not enough to keep chanting the mantra “these are only allegations.” Any person in any sort of public life the world over when faced with such serious charges of criminal activity or even mere impropriety is expected to step down until the allegations are proved or disproved. Not only would such a course send out an unequivocal message to all our sportsmen but put us on the moral high ground in the eyes of the world.
But we shall follow our usual course. Procrastinate and wait until further humiliation is heaped upon us by either the ICC suspending our players or worse still, other teams refusing to play us. Blame will be placed on the tabloids, our own media, a western conspiracy against Islam, an Indian RAW-orchestrated plot – in other words, we will blame everyone but ourselves. After sufficiently muddying the waters, the PCB will hold some sort of internal enquiry ‘in camera’, a few scapegoats will be made, to whom inconsequential sentences will be dealt out and then withdrawn in the subsequent weeks and months. Thereafter, it will be business as usual until the next scandal erupts and inflicts further disgrace upon our nation.
I am certain that all decent Pakistanis, would rather we slipped down to the bottom of cricket ratings and worked our way up again with a clean, upright and patriotic team than to dominate, and that too sporadically, through a bunch of crooks. But then, which government in Pakistan ever cared for what the majority of its citizens feel or ever chose the path of probity and integrity over short-term opportunism and self-deceit?
Mian Haroun Rashid
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2010.
