The Canvas

The WeCite blog recently reported on Shoaib Akhtar’s romp (partying out) which went under my radar and I couldn’t discuss. I wouldn’t discuss it per se because most of it doesn’t matter to me, but a few points raised in that post did invoke me to defend SA to an extent. Here is what I said,

Philosophically, PCB’s success should not be marred by just one person or player. They lay claim to be ‘doing their job’ at getting the best from every player. And I bet they are, so how does Shoaib’s partying going to hurt the team?

I see this not as a professional infraction, rather a more religious one. People in the National team and PCB have bigger beards to look beyond themselves and their religion. Sure they have Kaneria playing for them, but that too out of pure necessity. Kaneria is a good bowler, even better than Afridi.

If Shoaib is making it to the training sessions, putting it in his best in the nets, and has the ability to construct a win, what has any of that got to do with who and how he dances with? We need the win, if he can construct one for us, make him play. It’s as simple as that.

While some of the other comment’ers duely ignored the news report as useless, or rhetoric, others did question PCB and it’s policing. Of course, there were some of us who couldn’t live without being sarcastic about situations given our innate nature.

For me, it’s not a big deal if a person as religious as Saeed Anwar or as Christian as Danish Kaniera plays for the National Cricket Team. Religion in this case is a non-issue. A player should be judged by his technique, statistics, style rather than the length of his beard, the length of his bills, or the length of his home’s front lawn. A player that delivers on the day is better for me than a player that has a big beard but fizzles out at crunch time. And yes, I am talking about the big oaf, turned national hero, Inzimam ul Haq.

I have defended Shoaib Akhtar earlier on this blog, I believe it’s the PCB’s policing habits that have made the National Team take a bigger toll of successfulness than one person’s old habits. It’s time we changed our perspectives and see that these players don’t come from affluent backgrounds and neither me nor you were there for them when they were chasing their dream of becoming a cricketing star… Now how many of us were ‘even allowed to contemplate’ a career in cricketing? None I bet. Time to think and look beyond our veils and beards.

The current test series with India is a litmus test in action for you to judge how much depth the PCB run ‘National squad’ has from a country of 16 curore cricketing fanatics.

A rant post with the same title will appear on Islamabad Metroblogs in a few hours time that has me explaining in story-like detail about how misperceived the concepts of citizenry are sometimes. Not sometimes, but a lot of the times. Here is sneak peek at it,

We, me and a few others, landed on a dirt track. After making our way to the nearest traffic signal (read landmark) I called up home for them to come pick me up. I decided to bear away the weather for a little while, which was honestly the last thing I would do before going berserk on someone near-by.

The traffic signal was just off the highway, hence there was a police barrier (or chowki) right next to where I was standing. I had no other choice, but to avail the dim light of the kiosk to make myself prominent in that cold, dark and desolate road side. Desolate except a few policemen. Policemen! An as soon as I saw one, he looked back at me and approached me.

“Good God! The perfect night, the perfect day!” I said to myself. For all the things I had heard of the late about the on going student-police relationships, this had to be the best time.

This would be my idea of writing with a certain bit of pathos. I hope to do more with the same theme.