Islamabad
Our President Correspondent
President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain has made it clear to one and all that he would not resign ‘come what may’. The president’s announcement comes after the joint demand of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAF) head Tahirul Qadri of the president’s resignation. It is pertinent to mention here that both PTI and PAT have orchestrated their Azadi and Inqilab marches respectively from Lahore to Islamabad, culminating in over a week long sit-ins, just to pressurise the president into resigning.
“I will not resign. Come what may,” the President of Pakistan told Khabaristan Today. “They are getting desperate. They want to get the military involved. There are former cricketers, former politicians, former musicians, former sane human beings in Islamabad, thinking they can blackmail the government. They are using Attaulah Esakhelvi’s voice to emotionally blackmail the government. None of this would work,” he added.
President Mamnoon said that he realised why his existence was perceived as a threat to Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri and stated that no amount of pressure would force him to throw away his status as the ‘most important person in Pakistan right now’.
“They find me intimidating. That bit is obvious. I can understand why most people feel threatened by me. It’s probably my persona, the aura of invincibility that I have. However, being intimidated does not mean that you start plotting and planning against me,” Mamnoon said, adding that, “Millions of Pakistanis have selected me as their leader. No one can take that away from me. No tsunami, no shenanigans can force Mamnoon to quit,” he added.
The president then said that issues like these long marches were below his jurisdiction and he would let ‘people like Nawaz’ handle these matters.
“This interview right here that you’re conducting… I can’t believe the time I have wasted over a non-issue. These issues don’t concern me at all. In fact this is why I have Nawaz with me. I’ll have him take care of Imran and Qadri,” the president concluded.
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PCB bans Pakistani batsmen from accompanying bowlers on foreign tours
Lahore
Our Cricket Correspondent
Newly instated Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Shehryar Khan has immediately made a statement of intent by banning Pakistani batsmen from accompanying the bowlers on foreign tours. The move comes after BCCI banned Indian cricketers from taking their girlfriends with them on foreign tours.
After Indian capitulation in England the Indian cricket board felt that the girlfriends were too much of a distraction and hence should not be allowed on foreign tours. The girlfriends were perceived as being a major reason behind the Indian cricket team’s shambolic performance in England and hence to avoid future disasters the board has decided to learn from its mistakes.
It is pertinent to mention here that India lost the Test series against England 3-1. Shehryar Khan says he draws inspiration from BCCI’s move.
“It’s obvious that the Indian batsmen were distracted on their England tour,” the PCB chairman said. “(Virat) Kohli scored 134 runs in 10 innings. And it seemed as if he was on the verge of going ‘Jiya jiya re jiya re, Jiya jiya re jiya re’ every time he stepped on to the pitch,” he added alluding to the influence of the star batsman’s girlfriend Anushka Sharma on his batting performance.
“I’ve decided to learn from India’s mistakes.”
The PCB chairman said that Pakistani batsmen were to Pakistani bowlers during the recent Test Series against Sri Lanka what Anushka Sharma was to Virat Kohli. Pakistan lost the recently concluded Test series 2-0.
“Our batsmen are our Anushka Sharmas. We don’t need any distractions on the tour so we’ll just go with bowlers on foreign tours henceforth. Our bowlers can contribute as much with the bat as our batsmen, minus the ‘Jiya jiya re’ effect,” the PCB chairman said.
The ODI series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka is underway and might help shape the PCB chairman’s stance on our batsmen with regards to future ODI series.
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Imran urged to use analogies from other sports
Islamabad
Our Sports Correspondent
Sports writers in Pakistan have urged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief to not limit his analogies to cricket and use other sporting analogies as well, it has emerged. A group of Pakistani sports writers sent an email to the PTI chief suggesting other analogies that he could use.
Here is an excerpt from the email.
“You could use ‘At the back of the net’ to depict that you have scored a political point. ‘All bases covered’ could suggest that you have everything under control. ‘Penalty corner or penalty stroke/kick’ would be ideal to depict you dharnas, considering how crucial they are in the political matchups. There of course is the “slam dunk” when you come up with a quintessential jibe or jugat.”
The sports writers have advised Khan to use other sporting analogies as well lest his political movement is perceived as non-serious.
“A lot of his political rivals and critics taunt him as a cricketer,” one of the sports writers, Ali, said while talking to Khabaristan Today. “We believe that he needs to get out of the cricket zone and get rid of this cricketer stamp if he wants to be taken seriously as a politician.”
The sports writers were of the opinion that if the PTI chief’s vocabulary was limited to, or overwhelmingly constituted by, cricketing terminologies and he found it difficult to get rid of his cricketing verbiage, he seriously would need to consider adding more sporting idioms into the mix.
