Stani Army

For some time now I have touched on the fact that our players seem to demonstrate little intelligence in their conduct and play. The intelligence that inclines you to take those little singles, bowl a particular ball, or play a particular shot, how to stand, run or dive in a particular way on the cricket field. The intelligence that tells you when boundaries are needed or when singles are needed, and the intelligence that tells you not to try and bite a hard leather ball with dozens of cameras on you.

The Dawn newspaper has recently published comments by former coach Intikhab Alam in which he says that many of the Pakistan players are ‘mentally retarded’. His exact words were “…they are mentally retarded people. They do not know that they are representing the country”. I would have to say that this seems to fit in very well with some of the things we see from the Pakistani players on and off the cricket field.

The issue is how you address such a situation and this leads to the same place as every question in regards to problems with Pakistan cricket leads to. Without a stronger government that works for its people, the society in Pakistan, where our cricketers come from, will not develop as quickly as it should. While the puppet is in place to fight somebody else’s ‘war on terror’, the Pakistan people will continue getting a raw deal.

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If you go by the ‘logic’ that has prevented the IPL franchises from signing Pakistan players, then Pakistan would have to be excluded from the 2011 World Cup too, due to be held in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. The 2011 fixtures were drawn up in such a way that Pakistan would play their group games in Sri Lanka, and would only have to play in India if

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they reach the final. But what if they do reach the final? Some would say that this is a big ‘what if’ but they’d be ignoring the recent big ‘what if’ which prevented Pakistan’s players from playing in IPLIII.

The reason given was that the franchises could not be certain of the availability of the Pakistani players. So what do they exactly mean by that? Well, the Pakistani players would have been free from international duty in that period so this cannot have been what was meant. May be the reason is the fear that half way through the tournament, something happens in one of the two countries which would strain diplomatic relationships and heighten civil tension, causing Pakistan to call back its players for fear of attack in India. A big ‘what if’ in my opinion.

The most tasteless part of this IPL snub was that the Pakistani players were given false hope and led along until the very last minute, literally. Why did the eight franchises request the eleven Pakistani players up for selection if their policy was not to pick players that were not certain of availability? Well it is clear that something happened inbetween the period that these players were requested by the franchises and the time of the auction, and this is the sinister side to this whole situation.

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