Given the blunderland that the Osama drama has shown our ubiquitous security establishment to be, it was difficult to imagine Ijaz becoming the Butt of all jokes so soon and with such telling ease. But boy, were we wrong! What a comeback the Pakistan Cricket Board honcho has made. He has just ousted Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi from the hot seat and done it with such air of nonchalance it would seem the fault lay in either the Pathan’s astrological design or even the rather longish name he has inherited.
In his trademark imperious fashion, Butt declared there was no need to give an explanation for ringing in a leadership change since it was the board’s prerogative and “it happens all around the world”.
Butt Sahib’s nonchalance sounded so much like Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s, the disgraced IMF chief, who when questioned about his womanizing blurted, “So what if I like women?” On a serious note, the overriding lesson in the latest sacking in the House of Pakistan cricket is this: it is way too dangerous to leave decision-making in the hands of one man with a fetish for fulfilling the Oracle of Delphi.
Butt has for long betrayed a comic genius for measures that can only happen in a banana republic.
But how Butt has gone bananas this time is a feat to shame even Alice in Wonderland. For starters, why would you want to replace a winning captain, a hard-to-come-by commodity in as fragile a ship as Pakistan cricket? The more acceptable level of culpability until now — even if there was a certain bias involved and Heaven knows there’s no dearth of that in this part of the world — was to dispense with a captain on a losing streak. Afridi, who can be more eccentric than Butt when it comes to wielding what is a decidedly, exaggerated Boom Boom broadsword, was however seen even by his detractors as the best available choice to lead a rather suspect motley crew.
Bewilderingly, Afridi has been dismissed as captain when he had just landed an ODI series trophy, after a similar feat in New Zealand earlier in the year! And are we so insane to have already forgotten that this was a man who had turned a corner, inspiring a World Cup campaign in the worst of times — with his bowling arm reincarnating the fable of Pied Piper — until as recently as end of March? But with septuagenarian Butt’s failing faculties — hard of hearing, a suspect six-by-six vision in an age of Twenty-20, memory that lends itself to Alzheimer’s and a discernible difficulty in walking straight, it is of course easy to discount who was being feted for holding the team together — from being received by one chief minister at the airport to photo-opped by the prime minister in the hallowed precincts of the PM House — only last month?
Yes, public memory can be fickle but clearly, the teeming millions aren’t to blame for this fart of the possible. The latest implosion is not necessarily rooted in Afridi’s outburst over the deep penetration of coach Waqar Younis in team selection. It was likely, sown late last year by His Haughtiness Ijaz Butt, who chose against all logic to announce the team for the New Zealand tour without a captain for the ODIs — just weeks ahead of the World Cup! In a manifestation of perversity, Butt appeared to pit both Afridi and Misbahul Haq against each other and see who prevailed in the choice to spearhead the Cup campaign — all this at a time, when all the participating countries had long decided to make a studied stab at ultimate glory!
To his shame, both Afridi and Misbah showed remarkable composure and unity by eschewing personal ambition in favour of loyalty to the team, crowned by an impressive series triumph under Afridi against the Black Caps. Butt then had no choice but to continue with Afridi for the World Cup. It has been suspected for a while now that the burly PCB chairman always wanted the unassuming Misbah to be his point man, a decision dictated by the latter’s docility and near subservience. Misbah may be a picture of poise but pushing 38 and in the twilight of his career he is so beholden to Butt for even his place in the team that he cannot be his own man — precisely, Butt’s idea of a captain.
Remember how the PCB chief got rid of Younis Khan when he was threatening to become the next Imran Khan? Yes, Afridi is prone to impetuousness and his lack of form in the Caribbean cruise did him in but he still led the team with verve until his domain was invaded. Surely, the issue could have been sorted out over lassi at the Gaddafi secretariat and not treated like a sequel to Abbottabad. The writer is a newspaper editor based in Islamabad and can be reached at [email protected]
