The Pakistani Spectator

“Cricket is an art, a means of national expression,” wrote C.L.R. James in a 1966 essay on the batting prowess of Rohan Kanhai. More than four decades later, the first part of that statement isn’t difficult to defend, despite all the changes wrought in international cricket in the interim.

It would be possible to vindicate it, for instance, by reference to novice Pakistani fast bowler Mohammed Amir’s performance on English fields last month. Tragically, it is now widely considered that the precociously talented youngster also bears out the second part of James’ observation.

Cricketing entities past and present have noted that the allegations against Amir and two of his moderately more senior colleagues, Mohammed Asif and Pakistani Test captain Salman Butt, ought to be taken with a few grains of salt until they are conclusively proven. Unfortunately, however, the plausibility of the scenario exposed by The News of the World leaves precious little room for reasonable doubt.

The credibility of the tabloid in question is low even by the unimpressive standards of publications owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation conglomerate. But the evidence that the newspaper managed to obtain seems sufficiently incontrovertible to go unchallenged even by rivals generally sceptical — invariably with good cause — of the Murdoch media’s predilections. Not least, given the context, because Pakistan has form in this regard.

Pakistan’s cricket team is by no means the only one to have been dogged by allegations of spot fixing, whereby particular incidents within a match follow a preordained pattern, without necessarily substantially affecting its outcome. In the case in question, it was a matter of no-balls at specific occasions during the innings — and the two bowlers under a cloud overstepped the mark at the prescribed moments in a manner that even a half-bling umpire couldn’t have missed. If this was a coincidence, it defied the law of probability.

Cricket has long being described as a game of glorious uncertainties, and few would question the unpredictable consequences of a momentary lack of concentration. But the nature of the game also creates room for inglorious certainties. No-balls are obviously a case in point: if you feel obliged to bowl one, it’s hard to go wrong.

There are also numerous ways of throwing your wicket. It’s all too easy to drop a catch, too. Given that the best of fielders can, at times, be butterfingered, it’s hard to pinpoint a deliberately discarded opportunity — although, if it happens once too often (as has lately been the case with Pakistan in England), suspicions are bound to arise. Inevitably, Pakistan’s reputation in this regard facilitates suspicions even when they may be unwarranted. There was the time, for instance, when Inzamam-ul-Haq’s family home was torched after an uncharacteristically pathetic performance from him. Which, of course, was an absolutely indefensible mob reaction, regardless of the circumstances — but chances are it wouldn’t have happened had it generally been assumed that his poor performance was purely a consequence of poor luck (which it may indeed have been).

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a cricket expert. And for many years now the game has only peripherally attracted my attention. Pakistan’s habitual waywardness may have something to do with this, but it’s also related to the fact that there is far too much international cricket today in all three formats.

When I was growing up in Pakistan, Test series were an annual fixture at best. It wasn’t hard to be dismally bored by a Test match heading for a draw — Hanif Mohammed at the crease came a close second, although somebody or the other (Gary Sobers, for instance, or Asif Iqbal) could usually be relied upon to liven up proceedings.

It got better. The first India-Pakistan series in my cognisant lifetime was a propaganda masterstroke for Gen Ziaul Haq. Many of us, though, found it possible to thoroughly enjoy the cricket while holding that dastardly dictator in absolute contempt. Both sides were brilliant, but Pakistan — under Mushtaq Mohammed’s captaincy, with Imran Khan and Sarfaraz Nawaz as the strike bowlers, and a batting line-up that included Majid Khan and Zaheer Abbas in their prime, or close to it — enjoyed the edge against an opposition that featured Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath.

Had it been conceivable at the time that either side would be trying to please the bookies rather than the fans, the game would clearly have lost much of its glow.

A few years later, a Pakistan team under Imran gave an excellent account of itself against Bob Willis’s England at Lords. A decade later, it secured the World Cup in Australia — although in the interim the team had fallen sufficiently into disarray for Gen Zia to request Imran to reconsider his retirement.

Imran heeded the call, and produced results, but embarrassed himself in Melbourne by decreeing the World Cup victory a triumph dedicated to his Shaukat Khanum mermorial cancer hospital.

But that hardly counts as a transgression in the light of what followed, from the abuse of bottle-tops (by some of the world’s best fast bowlers, mind you) to match-fixing scandals.

Pakistan wasn’t by any means the only side involved in the latter practice — the revelation about South African captain Hansie Cronje’s involvement in betting scams was among the saddest blows to international cricket, and players from other countries, including India, have been suspected of being beholden to bookies. But it’s Pakistan that has laboured longest under the darkest of clouds. And it’s arguably darkest now than it has ever been before — leading to calls for Pakistan, already incapable of hosting international matches at home, to be stripped of its Test-playing status.

Matters have clearly come to a crunch. If the most recent match was a disgrace, it barely holds a candle to the Sydney Test in January 2009. And the shadow over the Pakistan team extends to its deplorable management. If the Augean stables cannot at this point be cleansed, it’s effectively all out for zilch. Imran Khan has been spectacularly unsuccessful as a politician. But he’s broadly seen as uncorrupt — and, hopefully, incorruptible. There’s no guarantee he would succeed as a cricket administrator, but it’s probably worth a try.