Cricket got the look of 'politics'
Australia won the World Cup for the sixth time, demonstrating once more why it has been the undisputed cricketing monarch for many years. It's the team that matters, not the player. Any player can make a team win at any time. There is a system that produces a champion team every few years otherwise 'on paper' the Indian team was the best in every department and won all the matches before the finals. However, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not lucky enough to advance his extremist and fanatical politics by handing over the World Cup trophy to the captain of India in the presence of 140,000 enthusiastic spectators at the 'Modi Stadium'.
But why were we happy and celebrating India's defeat more than Australia's victory, this is also a form of fanaticism and it also has a political background. It was quite possible that if we had been defeated in the final instead of India, there would have been a similar celebration in India as it was in 1999 when we were defeated by Australia. A few months ago today, the 'Asia Cup' was held in Pakistan, but India refused to play in Pakistan for no reasonable reason other than narrow-minded politics. On the contrary, the government of Pakistan allowed its team to go to India and the people there also welcomed our team in many places. The same thing happens here, whenever the Indian team came here, the people took their players by the hand. Seeing the same passion of the people on both sides, it has been made a pretense of politics, otherwise, if cricket links were established between the two countries, Test, ODI and T-20 series would have been held, then the 'political pollution' of both sides would be less. Now, there was a news many years ago from the representative of an international news agency, I still remember that when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif gave the green signal to the Pakistani team to go to India despite the threats of the Indian extremist group Shiv Sena. So the Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, while welcoming him, said the historic phrase "Don't sacrifice cricket to politics, keep both separate". When the team went, the people there gave a wonderful welcome. When Imran Khan became the prime minister, he invited many cricketers including Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Sidhu, the famous cricketers of India of their time, to participate in the swearing-in ceremony. Gavaskar and Kapil did not come due to their busy schedule. The entire Indian team sent a signed bat and Sidhu participated, which he had to suffer at the hands of the BJP.
There was a time when both the countries tried to improve relations through 'cricket diplomacy', but then political issues also ended the relations between people and now we only rejoice at each other's defeat. There are many reasons for the decline of Pakistani cricket but one of them is constant 'political interference'. The chairman of the cricket board changes as fast as the Prime Minister changes here. Every prime minister brings a chairman of his choice and he has his team, new captain, new coach, the 'results' are in front of us. Imagine in the last four or five world cups, we have never reached the final, but there is no accountability. If this is the case, the state of our cricket will not become like the national sport of hockey.
This factor was also prominent in the downfall of our cricket that many eminent cricketers and young players fell prey to 'narrow-minded' politics. If we want to save cricket, we have to end unnecessary interference, if we can't democratize politics, at least democratize the cricket board. Why should a president or prime minister be the pattern chief of the cricket board? Let the board elect its own chairman, the governing body should also be elected. It was expected from the 'captain' because he often mentioned the Australian model, but when he became the prime minister, he took the u turn here too, otherwise he himself said that the president or the prime minister should not be a pattern. We do not lack talent here, but if you look at the team, it seems that there is no talent in the country. Till date we have not been able to find a pair of openers after Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail. Until a year ago, the same bowling attack was called the best attack in the world, but these 'famous bowlers' of ours set a record for scoring the most runs. Some gave 100 runs in 10 overs and some 90. It seems that the spinners are over, the one that was there was sat out, Abrar.
When the level of our politics becomes such that Najam Sethi and Zaka Ashraf are the issues in the differences between Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, neither cricket nor politics will survive. Like governments, there should be continuity in cricket, whoever is elected as the chairman should complete the term of office.
It is not that the team has not been the world champion, even today we are one of the best teams in the world, if there is a lack of 'continuity'. Whenever the team looks united, it is suddenly replaced by a couple of poor performances and the continuity is broken. Now we are going to play another dangerous game that needs to be watched and that is the future of PSL.
Najam Sethi is credited with not only introducing this league to Pakistan but also bringing international cricket back to Pakistan. Now in Zaka Ashraf's tenure, the news that he is being taken back to Dubai due to the general elections in the country this year and in the name of security, is a cause for concern. If this happens, then actually we ourselves will send a message to the world that Pakistan is not a safe country. When Ramiz Raja became the chairman of the Cricket Board, he also played an important role in bringing international teams to Pakistan. If it is about election then move PSL forward by one month to March instead of February. Please don't 'exile' him or else it will be difficult to bring him back.
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