Pakistan have the talent to win the World Cup, but first they have to stop the infighting. Kevin Mitchell reports
There are few corners of Pakistani life untouched by cricket. When Benazir Bhutto was a love-struck student at Oxford, it is said she was snubbed by the game’s most eligible all-rounder, Imran Khan. In one of the great paybacks, when she became prime minister of Pakistan she took the unusual step of issuing an official government statement in which she revealed that she had always been a bigger fan of the captain of Cambridge, Imran’s cousin, Majid.
Those carefree days are long gone. Majid and Imran fell out and have not spoken in years, and Bhutto is back in London talking to lawyers in an effort to secure a safe return to Pakistan, where she hopes to appeal against her five-year jail sentence for corruption. Like most of her 135-million compatriots, she will be aware that the importance of her case has conveniently – on the eve of the World Cup – delayed the publication of a report into what is potentially the most damaging scandal in the history of the game.
The man presiding over both cases is the eccentric Mr Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum. Two weeks ago he told the Pakistan media he could not yet release his findings into match-fixing allegations against Wasim Akram, Salim Malik and Ijaz Ahmed because he was preoccupied with the Bhutto case. He then bizarrely revealed there was no firm evidence against the cricketers – although he still wants further discussions with Wasim, Ijaz, Salim, Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed. Wasim said from the team’s Birmingham headquarters last week that the players were not inclined to respond to the judge’s invitation. Bhutto might not be so lucky.
The World Cup, then, will be a welcome distraction for all concerned. If Pakistan are to win it, however, they will do so against all the odds, to use a wholly inappropriate cliche. The squad are now accused of rigging a game against England in the triangular tournament in Sharjah last month. There are also fears, as always, that the regional and social factions that plague Pakistani cricket are bubbling under, despite the team’s excellent, if fitful, form.
Sarfraz Nawaz, the former Test fast bowler whose gift for candour is legendary, was not alone in claiming last week that Javed Miandad’s departure from his post as Pakistan’s World Cup coach was a result of Javed’s accusation that the players had thrown their final match against England.
“Javed hasn’t stepped down, as some have suggested,” Sarfraz said from his home in Lahore. “He has been sacked by the players. He accused the players of fixing the match against England, and that’s why he is not there. The players got together and told him they were not happy about his accusations.”
Any suggestion alluding to cheating only further undermines the credibility of the team – and of this World Cup.
The danger is that we might all become complacent about the cancer of match-fixing in international cricket, so commonplace have the allegations become. Already the perception is in place that every game involving Pakistan is suspect, which is a sad blanket slur on the players.
They arrived in England last Tuesday, 24 hours before the Qayyum judgment was originally to have been made public, although the impossible task of keeping it secret in an environment that thrives on rumour has already been scuppered by the judge himself. In congratulating Pakistan for winning the Sharjah tournament, Qayyum added to the confusion when he said: “The players must be feeling that somebody is watching them. Wasim Akram seems more committed now.” They’re not guilty, right, but they know not to do it again, and now their reinstated captain is actually trying.
Maybe Javed was right. A streetboy who married into one of Pakistan’s richest families and rose to be vice-president of a bank, he often upsets team-mates and opponents with his uncompromising attitude.
At a quiet lunch attended by the England coach, David Lloyd, in London last week, a Pakistani team official was asked what the problem was with Javed.
“There’s a word for it in English,” he said. “But I can’t remember it …”
“Arrogant?” asked Lloyd.
“No, it’s not that.”
“Domineering. Is that it?”
“No … Ah, I remember now, yes … penis head.”
But, according to a business associate of Javed’s last week, his truculence springs from his competitive streak. “He has a wicked sense of humour, but he will argue black is white if he feels like it.”
This latest bust-up is not the first Javed has had with team-mates. “A similar thing happened many years ago,” Sarfraz says, “when he accused the players of not giving their best on a tour of Australia. There was then a war against Miandad and he was removed from the captaincy in the 1980s. But he was the coach when Pakistan lost to Zimbabwe [a highly dubious result] and again when they lost to Australia. Now they are under the leadership of Wasim, who has knitted the team together and they are winning matches.”
How successful Wasim will be as captain depends very much on the cooperation of his fast-bowling partner, Waqar Younis. When the pair routed New Zealand in just more than two days three seasons ago, they went on to take 41 wickets between them in the series and not once did they exchange a word. That was at the height of their partnership and the height of their feud (Waqar campaigned for Wasim’s removal) and, while Waqar is said to have committed himself to the cause here, the situation remains volatile.
There might be others who still view Wasim with suspicion. How, for instance, will Salim Malik, who engineered his departure from the captaincy the last time and was a surprise late selection for the World Cup squad, respond to his leadership? Wasim has been handed back the job after walking away from Test cricket last September to clear his name over the bribery allegations. That followed his ostracisation by the board, who have now welcomed him back.
“I am fed up with the allegations,” he said at the time. “I have never been charged, never had an opportunity to answer the allegations, never been shown any proof.”
Well, the proof, or otherwise, is with the authorities. And a respected Pakistani commentator recently asked the question: “What happens if Wasim Akram is found guilty and he wins the World Cup for Pakistan?”
There is no more fascinating cricketing nation than Pakistan. They can explode in a profusion of strokeplay and reverse-swinging yorkers or in acrimony, and a betting man would not gamble which way they will go in this World Cup – unless he was on first-name terms with a well- connected bookmaker in Bombay.
Qamar Ahmed has covered nearly all Pakistan’s tours over the past 25 years and says it has rarely been any different. “There is always something going on. The most fascinating aspect of Pakistan cricket is, since 1952, there have been at least 10 rebellions of one sort or another, against captains, or concerning selections – and yet they keep on producing great teams.
“Geographically and culturally, there are two poles in Pakistan, Karachi and Lahore. Karachi is Urdu-speaking, Lahore is Punjabi. The majority of Pakistan, 60%, is Punjabi. But the Punjabis also speak Urdu. The majority of people who play cricket for Pakistan come from either of those places. So there is always this tussle between them. But because of money and the television over the past 10 years or so, jealousy has also crept into the game among the star players.”
Meanwhile, with a notional dagger in his back or not, Wasim finds himself leading probably the best seam attack in the world. Certainly Sarfraz, who has nurtured Shoaib Akhtar, thinks so.
“It is the performance of the fast bowlers that has transformed Pakistan,” Sarfraz says. “And that is because they are all now physically fit. You will have noticed in the series against India and Sri Lanka, and in Sharjah, none of the fast bowlers broke down.”
Shoaib could be the star of the tournament. At 23, the lean, vibrant speedster from Rawalpindi is approaching what should be the most exciting stage of his development.
When Imran famously exhorted Pakistan to “fight like tigers” to beat England in the final of the 1992 World Cup, he did not mean among themselves but he must have feared that seven years later they would probably still be at it.
Meanwhile, as his spurned paramour contemplates a return to purdah in Pakistan, Imran has retreated to the relative calm of a life with Jemima Goldsmith and a summer alongside Vic Marks and co in the BBC commentary box. Could be worse.
ENDS
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