Should Saleem Malik be given another chance?

We are part of a society that allows the powerful to lord over us! Our Lords might be corrupt to the core, they might be vicious barbarians and rogues tweaking the law to their advantage all the time; yet, the masses remain subservient to their charm and power.

We accept them and let them govern us too, since we are supposedly big-hearted and extremely accommodating.

But then, perhaps, we are hypocrites of the highest order too, as on one hand we allow our leaders, our lords to pile misery on us repeatedly, while we come out all guns blazing against the chota chor on the other.

Perhaps, our former cricket captain, the master against spin bowling and woeful wickets, Saleem Malik, is one of those unfortunate chota chors.

Since it’s easier and ‘meaningful’ to crucify them with sheer disdain, the poor Malik it seems is a member of that inconsequential and insignificant club.

Malik, according to the Justice Qayyum Commission, sold two dead rubbers in Christchurch, ‘supposedly sold’ two finals of the Mandela trophy in South Africa, inspired his team to fix a rather damp squib of a four nation tournament in Sri Lanka, besides offering bribes to an Australian trio (Shane Warne, Tim May and Mark Waugh) that failed to dislodge the last pair of Inzamamul Haq and Mushtaq Ahmed on a square turner in a Karachi Test!

The honourable judge reportedly stated later, that at least a couple of the greats of the game escaped a ban by the skin of their teeth including arguably the most revered left-arm fast bowler to have ever played the game, a genius whose talent was admired by Mr Qayyum too.

At the fag end of his career, Malik didn’t have many fans, I also never admired him much then; I had my sympathies with the stoic Rameez Raja, the swashbuckling Ijaz Ahmed or the audacious stroke players like Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail.

Malik, for me, was a boring batsman, a nurdler, quiet accumulator of runs and his cheeky grin always made me feel uneasy.

I didn’t care much about his ban at the turn of the century either, as he was a spent force by then and I was never going to miss him on the field. Like most irate Pakistan fans I felt that the man finally got what he deserved.

Recently, 14 years down the line, the 103 Tests veteran, made an appearance on the state-owned sports channel. After hopelessly protesting his innocence for some 90 minutes of the show he ended with a plea simply saying: “I confess I am not an angel and have not led the cleanest life, but I have been punished enough, I have completed my sentence [his lifelong ban was overturned in 2008) all I want to know is that whether society is willing to accept me?

“Can I finally be allowed redemption and work on the welfare projects I have started?”

Like most of the viewers watching the telecast, I was spellbound for a minute. The man who had once taken the field with a broken arm wearing a sling against the most fearsome West Indian pace quartet of yore, the man who had played the most stunning ODI innings of all time against India in their own fortress, the man who had conquered Shane Warne at his peak, the man who mastered the treacherous Headingley track not once but twice and the man who had one of the finest records as captain of Pakistan had broken down on live TV, requesting a chance to redeem his broken, shattered life!

Is this nation of the big-hearted willing to give one of its best ever cricketing servants a shot at redemption? Or shall we force him to live with the guilt and perhaps, not even let him die with peace either, after all he is that chota chor we can squash with all our might!

But one feels that there is hope emanating outside Pakistan, as the International Cricket Council is set to install the tainted N Srinivasan as their first chairman, perhaps a tainted Malik can be allowed to join the Pakistan Cricket Board too?

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2014.

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