Big 3 and Fair Play
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
Sports was once an abiding source of joy for the people of Pakistan. Now, the paucity of performance causes emotional distress. The four-time winner of hockey World Cups can no longer qualify to play in the World Cup. The home of the Great Gama no longer produces wrestling talent. Pakistan - the bastion of squash champions - is now bereft of them.
The mighty legacy of Pakistan cricket is being squandered away. In a climate of national polarization, the appeal of cricket cuts across barriers of class, ethno-nationalism, and sectarianism. It is a cementing unifier in a culture marred and scarred by divisions. But the virus, which has infected politics and media, is now infecting cricket.
Those at the helm of the game are not there for their love of the game and passion to perform. Cricket has become a repository of lavishly endowed sinecure posts accommodating favorites of ruling circles. Predictably, the results have been disastrous. The continuance of bad, venal, and inept management has furnished the same set of players, same approach, and same selectors. And the results are also the same.
Alarmingly, the surrender mentality evident in other arenas of activity has crept into cricket.
World cricket is in the grip of the so-called Big-3, composed of the governing boards of England, Australia, and India, which the 2014 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack – the ‘bible of cricket’– has called “colonial-style divide and rule.” This new monopoly, in effect, is the hijacking of cricket through India’s commercially driven juggernaut.
Poor representation and poor presentation have already spoiled Pakistan’s case in the diplomatic arena. Domination of the veto-carrying Big-5 in the UN Security Council has been to the detriment of the unrepresented and ill-represented 1.5 billion Muslim world. That failure is now being replicated in cricket. Acceptance of the writ of the Big-3 and celebration of the resumption of the planned series with India are nothing short of capitulation. It is indeed the ‘bigotry of soft expectations.’
The same mentality was responsible for accepting the illicit Indo-US nuclear deal instead of challenging its legality. Those responsible are hardly held accountable. Authority must be linked to performance or it becomes merely an exercise in musical chairs.
Come May, election results in India most likely shall reveal Narendra Modi as India’s new Prime Minister. Modi’s complicity, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, in the massacre of 1000 Muslims in 2002, is a matter of public record. It even led to Atal Bihari Vajpayee calling for Modi’s ouster. It also led the US State Department to deny a US visa to Modi. It is very important to demand that the basis, criteria and the supporting documentation for that denial be disclosed in the public domain (Madam Zakia Jafri, wife of butchered ex-parliamentarian Ehsan Jafri, can provide more information.) But it is becoming part of the brittle character of ruling circles to crumble in face of pressure because that is the easy way out.
The writ of the Big-3 must be challenged. It is in Pakistan’s interest, in the interest of world cricket, and also in the interest of fair play.
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