Thursday, April 05, 2007

Pakistan Cricket's Lightweight


Remaining on the topic of cricket, your Blogger cannot help but notice that despite a series of catastrophes the old adage plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same) continues to apply to the PCB.

I came across one of Kamran Abbasi’s blogs on the Cricinfo site. In this Blog titled ‘Power without responsibility: the story of Pakistan’ .Abbasi lambastes Dr Nasim Asharaf and his mentor Musharraf.

This medical practitioner was, until Musharraf discovered him, simply a US-based urologist. Reclassified three years ago as a ‘cricket expert’ Ashraf was appointed by the General to the PCB Ad Hoc Committee and then last year his mentor made him Chairman PCB.

After the double disaster in the West Indies Asharaf went through the motions of taking responsibility by offering his resignation, which was swiftly turned down by Musharraf.

This is what Kamran Abbasi had to say about General and his medico friend:
We hear that Mushy, the president not the assistant coach, has not accepted the resignation of his pal Nasim Ashraf. This is a diabolical decision. Ashraf has presided over the most disastrous period in the history of Pakistan cricket. Blessed by failure he is being asked to continue and finish the job. God help us. The job he gave the impression of performing was the destruction of Pakistan cricket.

Following the lead of his own boss, President Mushy, he appointed his own pals and acquaintances to key PCB positions. No wonder Pakistan cricket is in a mess.

Ashraf has presided over the dumb reign of Younis Khan as "dummy" captain, the doping fiasco, Waqar's dismissal and the horse-trading that lead to Mushy the coach being appointed, the injury and selection chaos, the unfettered power of Inzamam and the sidelining of Woolmer (on this I quote Bob: "Since the resignation of the last Chairman any views I have had have not been wanted! The new Chairman certainly has his own way"), and a failure to deliver the constitution that he solemnly promised.

What's more he has annoyed the team and management by hanging out with them on tour like some sort of star-struck groupie, worse still a groupie who has got involved with team matters. In short, I hold him responsible for orchestrating this disaster.

President Mushy's decision does make sense from one viewpoint, however. Pakistan has too long tolerated power without responsibility. If Ashraf were to be seen to be taking responsibility for his cock-ups then the president, in his position of patron of Pakistan cricket, might have to accept some responsibility too. Now we couldn't have that could we?

This Blog seemed to have hit a tender nerve among Pakistani cricket fans and they reacted by sending in a voluminous number of comments. What surprised me was the depth of rage surging within the ranks of Pakistan’s cricket loving public.


Here are some examples:

Some humorous
Dear President Musharraf,
Please consider me for the post of PCB Chairman, I am doctor also and have played cricket at college level, rest assured I will complete your mission of complete destruction of Pakistan cricket.


Some Angry
What has Musharraf got to do with cricket? I don't know how he could have any time left over after playing the roles of the president, the army chief, the sole policy-maker while he is not busy interfering with the judiciary etc etc.

This MUSH regime has done nothing but to mess up things in a routine fashion. Nasim is not even qualified to be a water boy yet he is the chairman of the PCB. God help us all!!

Some Bitter
Why are u complaining after all Pakistan is a colony of the Army. It’s there right to do whatever they want and however they want to screw the nation.

Some philosophical (!?)
The story of pakistan and pak cricket goes like this:
..... har shaakh pe aik ulloo betha hay, injaam-e-gulistaan kya ho ga...


Others are problem solving (!)
I am sick and tired of this slow agonizing death. Why don't we just hammer in the final nail? I recommend that Altaf Hussain (MQM) be made president of PCB.
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If you want to read more of these comments then click here: http://blogs.cricinfo.com/pakspin/archives/2007/03/power_without_responsibility_t.php#comments
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1 comment:

Ibrahim Khalil said...

Onlooker,

If you do a little research on Nasim Ashraf, you will find that his sole qualification is that he has described Musharraf as 'Pariah' as stated by Akbar S. Ahmed in his book and had some part in crash of Pakistan Fund which was launch to attract US based expatriates along with Shaid Burki where he also refused to take any responsibility.