Ernest Dempsey — Some diseases are idealized national legacies. Take cricket, for example. It’s a sport most of the world knows little about, except that it exists by the borrowed name of a well-known insect. But in Pakistan, this underdog of a sport has been thoroughly and systematically turned into a national disease, a false addiction which has wasted billions of the poor country’s assets and has repeatedly dragged the country’s name into mire. Yet, the madness keeps climbing.Cricket never was an exciting game in Pakistan, the nation which loved its national sport hockey right until the 1980s when heavy sponsorship, extensive media coverage, and generous government funding brought the game virtually in a forcible manner to the forefront of national attention. It was in fact rain which gave the diffident Pakistani team a chance to win the 1992 World Cup, giving media the chance to exalt the game and attract scores of sponsors. The exaltation pumped into the success was so boundless that the down-the-slope journey of the national cricket team was forgiven and forgotten by the public. No longer did it matter to them whether their heroes violate rules in front of cameras right in the playground, lose tournaments (on which millions were spent) because of ogling women spectators in foreign counties, or get into match-fixing. Their hollow claim to fondness of cricket persisted, even resisted all odds (read ‘reality’).
The biggest blow to Pakistani cricket, and to international cricket broadly, came in August last year, when the British tabloid News of the World busted spot-fixing committed by some of the Pakistani team’s players while visiting the United Kingdom for a test series with England’s team. An undercover reporter of the tabloid recorded a video of the broker used to win Pakistani key players over by paying in cash. As the scandal rocked the world of cricket, the embarrassed Pakistani fans back home crouched into a corner of silence, mumbling disapproval of those accused. Now, the accused have been found guilty and may serve up to 7 years in jail for their fraud that further stained the name of the country which made them stars overnight. Will the Pakistani nation learn now?
Sadly, not so, even now! Just this morning, the masses could read in the news that PCB’s newly appointed chairman has called for appointing three coaches instead of one to train the Pakistani team. It is hard to make sense of this regal plan for cricket at a time when a sane person would expect massive cuts in budget for all cricket in and out of the country, if not a complete ban on participation in international cricket. But as has been the tradition of Pakistan’s authorities, they never learn from traumas, except in the opposite direction—one that leads to more trauma for the nation, but of course more profit for their own status.
At the moment, foreign media is asking whether Pakistan will revise the value it has placed so blindly on cricket. The blinding hype created around cricket has made their sports reporters think that cricket is Pakistan’s national game (and no wonder), but they don’t miss asking what in God’s name is going on here when a poor nation of 180 million people keep their eyes and sense shut to support the kind of irrational investment in cricket, with incompetent and corrupt players sponsored on government funds to stay abroad in expensive hotels and paid six-figure salaries, while the average Pakistani rots in his struggle to make ends meet.
For PCB’s chairman specifically, here is a humble advice that will likely work for the good of Pakistani cricket as well as this anxious nation: either wake up and ban this sport altogether, saving the billions for helping the troubled nation, or at least hire 4 coaches instead of 3 as being suggested. The fourth coach should be an expert teacher in the field of ethics and should exhaustively train all players of the national team in practicing ethical behavior, curbing greed and the tendency to violate all legal and moral limits, and realizing the sense of responsibility toward their nation. Sounds difficult? Very right! A general ban on cricket is easy, quick, and just what the nation needs.
