Had PCB, media and civil society acted more responsibly, the current national shame could have been, possibly, avoided
NEW DELHI: The question most Pakistanis should be asking, following the sentencing of cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, is what would have happened had they done something like this in a match played in Pakistan. Would they have been investigated? Would they have been detained and tried in a court of law? And would they have been convicted?
For too long, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the media and so-called ‘patriotic Pakistanis’ have defended and shielded their national cricket team simply because they argue that the western countries are out to get them. Religion is often dragged into this as well and it too is used to, more or less, justify the bad deeds of some of our Pakistani cricketers.
Had the PCB, the media and civil society acted more responsibly, the current national shame could have been, possibly, avoided.
MD
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2011.
