Victory and defeat are parts of a game. It is not the first time that Pakistan have lost a series. Despite the fact that Pakistan won the World Cup and a Twenty20 World Championship, they remained on the losing side quite a bit. Still Pakistan were considered as one of the best in the world. Possessing the capability of toppling strong teams any time, their opponents felt scared facing them. Pakistanis are a cricket-loving nation. Why are cricket lovers upset and frustrated to the extent of agitation is that the team behaved like a bunch of novices during the tour Down Under, making all types of mistakes and buying defeats. The tour management committee appeared to be out on a sight seeing trip. While a serious rift between two senior players Mohammad Yousuf and Shoaib Malik continued ruining the peace and amity of the team the officials acted as silent spectators. I will call such a conduct not only casual but also unpatriotic. It proves that during the last two years the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) headed by Ijaz Butt has made a thorough mess of the game as well as its administration. Such an astounding public demand for the removal of the PCB chairman and his partners, for bringing disgrace to the country, is absolutely legitimate. How do you expect the game to prosper when its administrators have no mutual trust among them. The case of a ‘battle royal’ going on between two top officials – PCB chief Ijaz and PCB director general Javed Miandad – deserves a special mention. Each one being a direct appointee of President Asif Ali Zardari considered himself superior to the other irrespective of their nature of appointment. Disgusted with the policies of Ijaz, Javed took advantage of the public agitation against the PCB and decided to join in the fray. There started a verbal brawl of historical dimensions in which the two of them levelled charges and counter charges against each other. Thank God it ended before reaching the stage of a physical combat, though the tempers on both sides were pretty high. Both of them being so dear to President Zardari no one in the ministry of sports dare reprimand them for making a mockery of Pakistan cricket. In an atmosphere of this nature how do you expect cricket to flourish. The nation having sunk deep in the ocean of disappointment, there was a massive protest against the game’s ruling clique. A lot of diehard cricket lovers wrote to the President to remove the incompetent lot of officials ruling the game so as to mark an end to the ruthless destruction of Pakistan cricket. The board was generally accused of indulging in nepotism, cronyism and financial mismanagement. The board officials were working only to draw huge financial benefits from their lucrative appointments rather than promoting the game. The public expression that "we care about the present and future of Pakistan cricket because we care about the present and the future of Pakistan itself" will indicate how emotionally the nation is involved in cricket. To project the nation’s feelings and sentiments about our team’s disastrous performance Down Under and the PCB’s incompetence to run the cricket affairs with success, a local TV channel set up a ‘Peoples court’. None of the PCB officials was present. Heated discussion took place to high light the PCB’s failure in the domain of building a strong team by injecting unity, discipline, mutual understanding, fighting spirit and other attributes. While none of those present spoke in favour of the PCB, the unanimous opinion was that Ijaz should be removed immediately. They strongly recommended Imran Khan as his replacement but Imran flatly refused, perhaps on account of his deep involvement in politics. Lot of opinions were expressed the major one being that for bringing the Pakistan cricket into disrepute the PCB top officials must resign voluntarily. Following the foot steps of the power hungry government that we are ruled by, they have refused to do so. Surprisingly, they even do not admit that the team performed poorly claiming that ‘we have been defeated by the best team of the world’. In the presence of the President’s blue-eyed boys ruling the PCB, God save Pakistan.
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