Adil Najam
The news is too fresh, murky on the details, and still developing, but as Adnan Ahmed has just pointed out on the comments section of another post, Pakistan walked out of — and therefore possibly forfeited — the 4th Cricket Test against England at the Oval, in a dramatic turn of events. Then, it was announced that Pakistan will take the field… but just as the crowd begins to cheer, the umpires decide they will not come out if the Pakistan team does. Meanwhile the light keeps deteriorating. No matter how this ends, this will be a drama to remember.
More and developing details are available here. Best place to stay informed on this is CrickInfo.Com, from where the photograph above is are linked. (Updated after original posting).
Both Pakistanis and Indians who wish to turn this into yet another silly India-Pakistan sparring exercise are invited to please go elsewhere. There are many places on the Internet which encourage and applaud such childishness. ATP does not. ATP will, therefore, block any such messages. Those who wish to talk about the issue itself and remain on-topic are more welcome to do so.
Yes, the timing and wording does look suspiciously made up. But maybe for the better so things settle down.
Ramesh, I’m having trouble understanding your comments. You said that Pakistan is known for unsportsman-like behavior? Can you point me to some actual evidence that the number of cases in which Pakistani players have been involved in such incidents is disproportinately higher with respect to other team?
I fail to see the terrorism connection. Even if one follows that strange logic, one has to remember that the perpetrators of the attempted attacks were BRITISH citizens. By that generalising way of looking at things, they should have a bias against Sajid Mahmood! (yeah! I know it sounds stupid!)
It’s complete slander to suggest that Pakistanis are too concerned about their “honor.” Every person on this earth has the right to be treated with dignity and innocence until proven otherwise is a constant theme in the laws of most countries.
To put this in perspective, if, say, one day while you’re working, your boss or “superior” comes in and says, “Hey, I know you tried to fudge some numbers, so I’m going to punish you slightly by reducing your pay.” Would you even CARE about the money at that point?? I know I wouldn’t!!
In the same way, if a teacher takes off 5% of your grade and tells you that you PROBABLY cheated off someone, would you not protest? This is not about honor, this about basic dignity.
This is my last post on this controversial issue. I read Shahrayar Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s interview to the media. The complete interview is here.
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/australia/content/ current/story/257372.html
Some of what he had to say made my jaws drop as I was reading his mind so well. Pl. refer to my discussion about the ‘Post Honor’ world and the relevance to this post becomes clear . He was discussing the controversy in religious and civilizational terms and I quote:
“Cricket is a bridge of peace,” he added. “In these days of tension outside the cricket ground, what a wonderful site it is to see cricket between a Muslim country and Muslim people, and England, the majority Christians. Why destroy this bridge of bridge? Why go on and on with intransigence, saying ‘No, no, no, we will not resume [the match] I find that very difficult.”
Not sure why he brought it up. But I found some of his arguments to be ludicrious. For example, while he acknowledges that Hair is a good umpire, Pakistan does not like his attitude. Now, what the hell does that mean? Well, there are many people with poor attitudes, but that does not mean we don’t play against them or with them. Grow up Shahrayar Khan!
It’s now official. IUH has been charged by the ICC and he has to appear before a panel on Friday to show cause as to why he and is team are not guilty of ball tampering. IUH will get a 8 one day match ban if found otherwise. My take is that, unless this is a widespread conspiracy cooked up by the four umpires, the match referee and the ICC authorities, it appears their could be some truth to the allegations. Umpires are well trained to differentiate between a ball that is deliberately tampered and one that is battered because it was dispacthed to the boundary countlesss times and the later argument does not hold water. On the other hand, if it is found that Hair and the ICC were ‘conspiring’ against Pakistan, they have to be reprimanded and punished. In any case, we need to know the truth and nothing but the truth. The best way to end this controversy is to present the real evidence to Imran, Wasim and Waqar.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/cfd4ff0a-3139-11db-b953-00 00779e2340.html
This is a seminal moment in the history of test cricket. Now that IUH has been charged, I don’t think the Pakistani nation is in any mood to accept ‘wrong’ even if that is what happened.