Embracing Dishonour

Its not easy being Pakistani, or should I say that it is easy being Pakistani, but it is very hard to take pride in it. Every time there is something like the response to the earthquake, where civil society and the people of Pakistan stepped up and provided services which the government and the army could not, one feels pride and indeed a sense of honour with being Pakistani. When Maulana Edhi is lauded in the international press, or one hears about the fact that Pakistanis are indeed the most charitable country in the world, the little flag which stands at full mast in my mind blows in the wind.

But yet, everytime there is something like that, there is a General from the army who gets up and says, "Let the earthquake victims eat cake". The president of the country goes on a global book schilling tour, more humiliating than presidential. A man in Hyderabad, or Jacobabad or Abbotabad, sells his daughter at a poker game. And all one can do is shake his head and say "May God help us all!"

Yet, for the past 60 years, from the one place where there has always been pride, is on the cricket pitch. Our hockey and squash legacies have slowly faded away over the years, but the one place where the passions of the nation find fruition and relief is the cricket pitch. Whether it was Fazal Mahmood's ripping leg cutters or Hanif Mohammad's stolid defence, Majid Khan's majestic shot making or Zaheer Abbas' languid grace, Imran Khan's fiery, calculated fast bowling or Waqar Younis' incessant pace, Javed Miandad's Rocky Balboa like ability to make everything look like a scrap or Yousuf's current ability to make any shot look easy, any pitch docile, it is in these moments that the nation seems to define itself. For brief, oh ever so brief, moments when Asif bowls a jaffa to Laxman or Shahid Afridi makes world class bowling look like gilli danda on the street, the country stands as one, delirious with joy. The happiness and sheer pleasure of the occasion is made even more acutely felt by the knowledge that in the very next instant, Shahid Afridi could fall to a tossed up piece of "halwa" by a part time bowler or Inzamam will be declared out obstructing the field, and that moment of joy will be dissipated in pure anguish and frustration. Emblematic of life on almost every front in the world of Pakistan, the cricket field has been the mirror in which every segment of society has seen its struggles and challenges made manifest.

Yet, as is always so important in the Pakistani mind, is a sense of honour, a sense of struggling against odds which may be daunting, but are never insurmountable, save for one's own personal foibles and for the omnipresent nudging, prodding, pushing hand of fate. This sense of honour may be felt more in its violation in daily life, but yet on the cricket field, has defined our nation's sense of self and our nation's own pride in itself. The celebrations after the 1992 World Cup win, and those after Pakistan beat India in Calcutta in 1987 have perhaps never been outdone in our history. Speak to any Pakistani about cricket, and their eyes will light up as they speak about their favourite cricketing memories and their favourite player, who for them defines that elan, which is Pakistan.

Yet, it is precisely this sense of joy, this sense of self and this elan which Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have violated. It is exactly this sense of honour and pride that was thrown away the day Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif had to stealthily make their way back to Pakistan from the Champions Trophy. As all know, that was the day they were found to test positive for the usage of illegal steroids. At no point did either of the duo, or their handlers even contend that they hadn't used steroids or illegal substances. Shoaib Akhtar claimed that it was the usage of pseudo-legal steroids with names like "Viper" "Nitron 5" "T-bomb 2", which supposedly everyone was using. Well, if everyone was using them, why didn't they test positive? Mohammad Asif claimed that he just didn't know the rules. Well, if he doesn't know, how does Dhoni know, from a small town, in the small province of Jharkand? Beyond that, not a word protesting their innocence. Yet, many in the nation bought their story.

Editorials and comments spoke about the many challenges Shoaib Akhtar faced in his career, while all spoke of Asif's relative innocence. There was a feeling by many that perhaps Asif had been hard done by, with his suspension for a year, while Shoaib became perhaps a tragic hero, outdone by his own desire to fly like Icarus. The World Cup, at this point was a mere three months away, and many thought that the event would become his redemption, where he would reassert himself as one of the premiere bowlers of his generation, and somehow put all the stigma of being the first cricketer in history to test positive for steroids, the ultimate in performance enhancing drugs.

How quickly all of that fell away. Asif bowled well in South Africa and showed his promise, and Shoaib Akhtar showed all what he was capable of, in two deadly and violent spells in South Africa before pulling away with a questionable hamstring injury. And then came the PCB's insistence to test all the players before the World Cup, and there began the road to dishonour and national humiliation by both Asif and Shoaib Akhtar. Suddenly, there were "injuries" which needed multiple assessments in England. All of this, while Shoaib was posing in commercials in Malaysia, and reports were rampant that the real reason for going to England was to get tested for steroids, and to have their systems flushed.

The PCB kept dismissing these rumours as baseless, kept putting up PJ Mir to state the same thing over and over again: fitness is the issue, not drugs. All of this, despite multiple reports saying that no, they were fit, they will be ready for the World Cup. The PCB kept feeding into this, building up the hopes of fans, letting their spirits soar at the prospects of glory in the upcoming World Cup, with Shoaib Akhtar and Asif being able to play. Despite the fact that every other player was tested, the conditioning camp was over, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif and the pillars of propriety that are the PCB kept lying to us, kept telling us the same stories of injury and fitness, while the real story was one of subterfuge and dishonour.

It all finally came to pass on Wednesday, when everyone except our two "dark heroes" (?) had left to play in the premiere cricketing event of the cycle. It took Malcolm Speed to promise and state unequivocally that if the PCB intended to disgrace the game of cricket and Pakistani cricket by bringing these two to the World Cup, the ICC would test them, in a targetted manner. While Dr. Ashraf, in the way of a politician, protested Speed's comments, it was telling that within two hours of that came the report that both Shoaib and Asif were being left out of the squad for the West Indies due to "fitness" reasons. If it took so many days for fitness to be dealt with and addressed, how do all these issues, and for both of the players, find completion within two hours of Speed's comments? Dr. Ashraf, you may be able to think that you can fool us, but we are not morons.

While many may buy this theory of physical fitness, I feel the issue with Shoaib and Asif are no longer really related to physical fitness, but to the fitness and strength of their characters and morals. These two, together, have done far more than damage their own personal careers. They, through their actions, have ripped away the fan's ability to see honour on the cricket pitch. They have stolen from the fan the joy that comes from watching cricket at its finest, and watching Pakistani players at their finest, as all will ask and continue to ask for the longest time: "Who else is on the 'roids?" While match fixing affected the entire sport, and brought dishonour on multiple nations, this cross is Pakistan's alone to bear, and this humiliation is only ours to tolerate and then try to get past.

Sadly, for a nation needing joy at such a strange time in our history, Pakistan's experience at the World Cup will bring no such feeling of happiness. It will bring sadness and despair at what could have been, and should have been. And then, it will bring an anger and frustration at these two symbols of all that is and could be good for Pakistan, who have let us down and taken away from all of us, the only thing which is important: our sense of honour.