Book review: Controversially Yours - off the rails

Shoaib Akhtar’s Controversially Yours can be entertaining, rousing and emotive, as well as fairly myopic and highly paradoxical, all at the same time. Not only is it characterised by the same crests and troughs as Akhtar’s sporting career but, also just like his career, this autobiography is regrettably short (takes barely an evening to finish), and doesn’t quite reach its full potential.

It is also a bit of a jarring read, replete with seemingly random sentences and paragraphs with little transition in between. There are editing issues as well, with new and sometimes unfamiliar characters often presented without introduction. Compared to sports biographies such as Imran Khan’s All Round View or Andre Agassi’s Open, Controversially Yours feels more like a fireside chat with the author, than a great athlete’s autobiography.

Aside from some views on Brian Lara, and sparse mentions of certain players from the Australian and Indian national teams, the book is shamefully lacking in detailed insight on the international cricketing scene. And while other cricketers’ autobiographies speak of personal and team performances, Shoaib Akhtar’s book speaks mostly of his own match performance, which seems to be a fair reflection of the self-centred spirit of the team he grew in as an international cricketer.

Wasim Akram, especially, is in the line of fire for what Akhtar sees as unprofessionally selfish behavior, and dirty politics. Shoaib clearly believes that Wasim tried to ruin Waqar Younis’s career, a sentiment Waqar shared with the media during his playing days as well. Akhtar also fires broadsides at a number of Pakistani cricketers and officials, settling scores with those whom he claims had been awful to him while he was still trying to break into the team.

The juiciest revelations are about how some cricketers, unable to handle the abnormal pressure of playing for Pakistan, develop behaviours that can only be termed, well…aberrant. Akhtar discloses that certain Pakistani cricketers write love letters in their blood, while others turn to alcohol and pills to ward off depression and a few even contemplate suicide. Anger management is apparently an issue with the team, and Akhtar informs us that fistfights often break out in the dressing room. In fact, he tells us that at one point, off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq, who was rumored to be facing the axe, chased then coach Javed Miandad with a cricket bat in hand. With such madness behind the scenes, it is no wonder the team’s performance is so sporadic. Shoaib Akhtar himself admits to having suffered from instances of depression during his career, and feels that the Pakistan Cricket Board’s unprofessional, reactionary and uncaring attitude, and an inability to manage its players, is to blame.

A large part of Controversially Yours comes across as an attempt by Akhtar to set the record straight. He bemoans how the media falsely judges him on his reputation alone, and mentions how during one of the darkest moments in his career, he was automatically labeled a rapist, when the actual alleged culprit’s identity was kept hidden by the PCB. So paranoid is Akhtar about being labeled the bad guy that he says, “I thank Allah that I was not part of the World Cup team [when Bob Woolmer died], otherwise I am sure the media would have charged me with murder — charged, not accused.”

The biggest contradiction lies in how Akhtar presents himself as a man who refuses to “butter the toast” of those in power. Early on in the book, Akhtar writes a completely out of place tribute to the assassinated former leader of Pakistan’s People’s Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto — the inclusion of which doesn’t make sense at that stage in the book. Later, when Akhtar speaks of being banned for substance abuse, he talks of how he sought the help of President Zardari and Rehman Malik to get back into the team, and the earlier tribute suddenly clicks into place. Also, uncharacteristically for him, he refers to both PPP leaders with the honorific ‘sahab’, and one realises that there indeed are toasts that Akhtar will not hesitate to butter.

With typical straightforwardness, he freely admits to ball tampering, and claims that it is a regular practice in international cricket, which has led to a lot of fire from critics. This book has been met with a lot of preconceived notions and the same censure that Akhtar complains about facing throughout his cricketing career. But, with a title like Controversially Yours, and released excerpts tailor-made to set tongues wagging, one wonders if he has any right to blame those who come at him with bouncers, when he himself prepared a fast bouncy pitch.

Available at Liberty Books for Rs995.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, October 9^th, 2011.