Our Cricket Correspondent
Kakul
The Pakistan cricket team is set to go to the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul after its return to Pakistan from England to perform a total of 444 push-ups each in the front yard of the esteemed institution.
Till the filing of this press report, the utility of the 444 push-ups was not clear. However, some academics have weighed in on what, exactly, is the reason.
“This is actually an ancient ritual,” said Prof Hamid Hassan, head of the anthropology department at Quaid-e-Azam University. “Rituals and dances like these were actually meant to appease angry gods.”
“These gods were very irrational and since they were deemed to be all powerful, all positive outcomes were attributed to them and all negative outcomes were attributed to their dissatisfaction,” he continued.
“For instance, if there were timely rains, followed by timely sunny weather, the gods of fertility were praised endlessly. But if there were no rains, or too much rain, the gods of fertility were beseeched, asked what wrong the mortals had done,” he explained.
“The gods were never wrong, therefore, the brunt of losses was always borne by the mortals in question, but the credit of the victories were the largess of the gods.”
It is also pertinent to mention that a sweeping set of promotions have taken place in a national institution to celebrate Pakistan’s recently acquired number one test status.