Kamran Abbasi
Punish Ijaz Butt not Pakistan cricket
The ICC has demanded that Pakistan cricket put its house in order
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
The ICC has demanded that Pakistan cricket put its house in order. Reform or be expelled is the cry. For any ardent ICC observers this is a shocking statement simply because the ICC is a serial coward when it comes to confronting its member boards. For Pakistan cricket fans the shock is that their team could be expelled from international cricket. Amidst this catalogue of revelations, the least shocking is that Pakistan's cricket board is in a certified mess. I say cricket board, because this week's Twenty20 domestic tournament played out in front of packed houses, has shown that the thrill of Pakistan cricket is still alive.
For once, ICC's statement is unusually clear. It will take strong action to stamp out corruption, and the PCB is clearly singled out as the number one basket case. I welcome a strong stance on corruption from ICC even though it seems like too little too late. I welcome the ICC's censuring of a dysfunctional cricket board even though it happens to be the PCB. Yet there are major issues that the ICC must address.
The PCB is an easy target, isolated and friendless in international cricket. Would the ICC have taken a more powerful member to task in similar fashion? Let us hope so and a precedent has been established but how will ICC behave if India, for example, were to bring cricket into disrepute?
Full postYounis Khan: a selection scandal
Many gruesome disasters have befallen Pakistan cricket in the past 18 months
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Amid the regrets, withdrawals, and reversals that pour forth from the orifice of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), one policy remains constant: Younis Khan is barred from selection for the national team. The facts are simple and as ever, they paint a dismal picture for the Chairman of the PCB. Younis is available for selection, yet the selectors are unable to select him. He has no case to answer following the ridiculous ban imposed upon him by the PCB but his case is still open.
The question is why? And the answer is simple: Mr Butt has a shifting policy on apologies. The players banned, barred, or suspended following the disastrous tour of Australia have eased their path back into the team with a well-timed apology to Mr Butt. What they were apologising for, nobody was clear. Why they then apologised is only for their consciences to answer. Mohammad Yousuf's equally well-timed retirement helped him bypass any action from the PCB and obviate the need for an apology.
Yousuf, aside, Mr Butt is big on people apologising to him. When the boot is on the other foot, however, his love of an apology vanishes in a flash. Mr Butt's recent slander of the ECB and its cricket team was followed by a show of defiance that an apology would not follow. For once, he was true to his word. His carefully-worded, legally-crafted retraction did not contain the word 'apology'. It contained intonations of regret, withdrawal, and misunderstanding but no apology in sight.
Full postCaravan of clowns
The ICC, the PCB and the media are to blame for the heightened controversy and suspicion during Pakistan's tour of England
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Command and control are the golden rules of handling any crisis because you can only be in control if you have command of the situation. Sadly, this summer’s spot-fixing controversy has once again revealed that too many cricket administrators, past and present players, and journalists are far from in command once the heat is on anything more complicated than the execution of a forward defensive.
Controversy has dogged each and every Pakistan tour of England for almost three decades. The reasons are complex but dominated by the weaknesses in Pakistan’s cricketing structure, a desire not to be walked over, and rabid suspicion of any Pakistani conduct by an unhealthy proportion of the English media.
To be clear, the video evidence concerning the Lord’s Test was alarming and action was required. It was a shame that the reluctance of the Pakistan board to suspend its three players forced the ICC to take action, which it was right to do. But that doesn’t excuse the events that have unfolded in the aftermath, as the crisis has exposed the failings of institutions and individuals across the globe.
Full postCricket survives Butt attack
Lord’s wasn’t full but it was resplendent
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Lord’s wasn’t full but it was resplendent. A healthy crowd enjoyed a perfect late summer’s evening, by the end of which you might have been excused for forgetting that international cricket was on the brink of calamity. Sensible heads in the ECB ensured that the fourth one-day international between England and Pakistan took place despite a unilateral attack by Pakistan’s bumbling chairman, Mr Ijaz Butt.
Nerves were fraught following a night of anger in the England camp and bewilderment in Pakistan’s. The tension even spilled over into a pre-match clash between Jonathan Trott and Wahab Riaz, and it was still etched on the furrowed brow of Andrew Strauss at the post-match press conference and the perspiring forehead of Pakistan’s coach Waqar Younis.
Waqar, it seems, has become Pakistan’s one-man crisis management team. I’m not sure these delicate media situations come naturally to him but he has done admirably enough in fending off hostile questions, at least attempting to focus on cricket instead of fanning the flames of controversy. He described England as a great venue to tour and relations between the teams as superb. Although the latter statement might have been stretching the bounds of credulity, Waqar has always had affection for cricket in England despite the controversies.
Full postHopeless at Lord's
I want resolution
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Omar Kurieshi, Pakistan's great writer and broadcaster, once sent me on a mission. It was in my early days of cricket writing, and he had recruited me for Sportsweek, his new publication. I was sent to talk to Wasim Akram, possibly the greatest left-arm pacemen of them all and a man besieged by match-fixing allegations. Kurieshi wanted to help him, rescue Pakistan's champion from the baying hounds with the smell of blood in their nostrils. I met Wasim, looked him in the eye, and asked him whether the allegations were true or not. The master of reverse swing was quick to reassure me of his innocence.
The point of this anecdote is not to question Wasim's integrity, it is to highlight a human trait that is not peculiarly Pakistani but has become a common feature of Pakistan's response to match-fixing or spot-fixing allegations. It is simply this: each allegation is seen as a conspiracy or attack on Pakistan, an attack that has to be repulsed at all costs, instead of a red alert about corruption.
These posturings are wearisome but they have now turned outrageous with Ijaz Butt's misfiring accusations against England's cricketers. I don't know which players from which teams are involved in fixing performances and results; only the players and the bookmakers know for sure. I do know that serious match-fixing allegations have surrounded international cricket for many decades.
Full postDead tour walking
Shahid Afridi's players have acquired the greatest responsibility in the history of Pakistan cricket: the responsibility to save Pakistan cricket from the recklessness of their colleagues and the negligence of all the President's men
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Four months ago Pakistan were the most feared team in Twenty20 cricket. Four days ago they were dreadful. This is a dead tour walking and it is up to Shahid Afridi's team to bring it back to life. A summer that began with hope and ambition is ending in total disaster. A demoralised team is playing before numb supporters. If Pakistan's remaining players have clear consciences they need to show the world that their country has the pride and heart to face down the many challenges it faces.
As the saying goes, a fish rots from the head, and Pakistan cricket will not halt its death slide until the head of the cricket board is replaced. Yet Ijaz Butt appears as secure as ever, safe in his friendship with the President of Pakistan. We would all love to know the precise nature of the debt that Zardari owes Butt, beyond personal connections, because Butt's has been the most disastrous regime in the history of Pakistan cricket.
The world is powerless to break Butt's spell over Zardari. This sense of powerlessness complicates the grief that Pakistan supporters are currently experiencing. My impression is that Pakistan fans have been through a stage of denial and are hovering between anger and sadness, with the final stage of grief being acceptance. The current Pakistan players and management, assuming their innocence, must be cycling through similar stages.
Full postA judicious withdrawal
Now they have been left out
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Now they have been left out. Ijaz Butt rushed out a statement that Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, and Mohammad Amir will not be suspended unless they are proven guilty. I believe he was wrong and the decision to withdraw them from the limited-overs series is the correct one. The last week has been such a traumatic one for Pakistan cricket that there are many compelling reasons for the decision.
The central question that any administrator, player, or supporter has to answer is what is best for Pakistan cricket? Is it a show of defiance that refuses to agree to any sanction against Pakistan's players using the age-old right of innocence until proven guilty? Or is it a firm stance against any misconduct or corruption in the name of Pakistan cricket? It has to be the latter and here are my reasons:
1 The spectre of match-fixing and spot-fixing has never left Pakistan cricket. The Qayyum inquiry of a decade ago was a compromise, an exercise in punishing some offenders but fearful of damaging the prospects of the national team. The compromise failed. Pakistan cricket declined since the end of the 1990s. The players who were fined but not banned have struggled to shake the odour of misconduct. Their ongoing association with Pakistan cricket is an easy target for conspiracy theorists every time a controversy arises. Importantly, the match-fixing scandal didn't end with the Qayyum inquiry but limped on.
Full postA final humiliation
Pakistan lost a Test match and a series but they might have lost something more important: their integrity
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
Pakistan lost a Test match and a series but they might have lost something more important: their integrity. Has a day of Test cricket ever been played under such a shroud of controversy and potential disaster for a group of cricketers? Once more, an England Test series ends in unwanted allegations and accusations. A country ravaged by war and floods, now faces international humiliation over the conduct of its cricketers.
The spot-fixing crisis is a disaster for Pakistan cricket. The evidence released in the last 24 hours is some of the strongest ever presented about match-fixing. It is a criminal investigation. As a result, some of the brightest talents of Pakistan cricket face the toughest battle of their lives, the battle to save their careers. Pakistan fans will be hoping that the evidence that appears to damn their cricketers on face value does not bear scrutiny.
As we await further revelations or denial of the evidence presented, two issues are imperative. First, the evidence must be thoroughly examined for the sake of the reputations of the individuals involved. Second, if the evidence does confirm that match-fixing or spot-fixing has taken place then Pakistan cricket must not spare anybody who has been involved in any capacity, whether player, manager, board administrator, or bus driver.
Full postA demon banished
The Oval had been a happy hunting ground for Pakistan cricket, right up to the moment in 2006 when Darrell Hair accused the Pakistan team of ball tampering
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
The Oval had been a happy hunting ground for Pakistan cricket, right up to the moment in 2006 when Darrell Hair accused the Pakistan team of ball tampering. When Inzamam-ul Haq’s players refused to take the field after the interval, I rang one of the Pakistan management to find out what was going on. “Wait and see,” he bristled with pride, “you will witness something incredible. We are not standing for this any longer.” The Oval 2006 had become Pakistan cricket’s Spion Kop, Dunkirk, and Panipat all rolled into one.
The Pakistan management played their part in the controversy but in my view, and I’m sure you’d expect me to say this, it was Hair who was the primary reason that the cricket world was plunged into crisis. No evidence of ball tampering was discovered. Hair had seized upon an opportunity to vindicate his past actions, except that he misjudged the situation horribly. His subsequent behaviour, especially his demand for a pay-off, lost him much sympathy.
For Pakistan cricket the incident at The Oval and its aftermath initially felt like a triumph. But, ironically, those days marked the collapse of the last respectable era of Pakistan cricket. Up to that tour of England, Bob Woolmer had expertly guided Pakistan’s return as a force. Yes, there was some way to go to complete the Woolmer project but a middle order of Inzamam, Mohammad Yousuf, and Younis Khan spoke for itself. It was the bowling that required development, much resting on the rookie Mohammad Asif.
Full postSelection case that damns Ijaz Butt
The Karachi City Cricket Association has called for the removal of Ijaz Butt as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board
Kamran Abbasi
25-Feb-2013
The Karachi City Cricket Association has called for the removal of Ijaz Butt as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board. Its central grievance is that Karachi-based players are being discriminated against in the selection process. The facts, they argue, speak for themselves. Tanvir Ahmed is the only Karachi-based player left in the squad.
Critics have started calling the Pakistan team a Punjab XI. They identify the omissions of Younis Khan, Fawad Alam, and even Mohammad Sami as evidence to support their case. Danish Kaneria, another Karachi player, was suddenly chopped from the squad and replaced by a promising Punjabi teenager. With Umar Gul out with injury and Yasir Hameed unable to earn selection, the taunts of Punjab XI may well become reality at the Oval.
If only Punjabis stride out to represent Pakistan in the next Test it will be a shameful moment in the history of Pakistan cricket. The Pakistan team has always been a microcosm of the greater struggle of the Pakistani nation, whose founder's ambitions were to bring together the peoples of the four major provinces of Pakistan. Among the many disasters during the regime of Butt, this suggestion of ethnic prejudice is among the gravest.
Full post