INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY (Dawn Magazine, Sunday, January 18, 1998)

Dawn Magazine, Sunday, January 18, 1998

INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY

By Adil Ahmad

The 'great conspiracy' has reared its ugly head again with the ruthless trashing of yet another Pakistani role model. Wasim Akram, mythical hurler of demon missiles, crusading 'kapitan' of our men-in-white (sadly not any more), has been given out on a no-ball. Wasim has been 'tried', found 'guilty', and crucified by a gullible media fed and fattened on rumours, half-truths, and outright lies. In an age in which an anti-state conspiracy is feared to lurk behind every bush in the land, the members of our revered cricket team, the role models of so many millions of young, impressionable minds, should be the recipients and beneficiaries of every conceivable benefit of the doubt. Match-fixing and betting against one's own team are very serious matters, and at the national level would equate with high treason, for which the punishment is the same in most countries of the world.

A casual media trial of a living legend, based on circumstantial evidence, is criminal in the extreme. The damage already done to Wasim Akram's and Pakistan's reputation, through innuendo and insinuation, is irredeemable and irreparable. If the Pakistan cricket team is even half the team it claims to be, then it is duty bound to resign enmasse in protest against the diabolical treatment meted out to its teammate.

Wasim Akram's past performances have been a major inspiration both for the team and the nation at large, and we owe him much more than just the benefit of the doubt. For its priceless handling of the situation our cricket officialdom deserves an extended vacation in Siberia, devoid of thermal underwear. Wasim Akram is fighting back in his own way, and has declared his intention to play for his employers (PIA) in the Patrons Trophy Grade I Championship.

In the Punjab, meanwhile, the chief minister Shahbaz Sharif has formed a committee to promote cricket in the province. The committee includes, amongst others, the President of the Pakistan Hockey Federation. A case of lateral thinking, I am sure. Another case of lateral thinking involves the prime minister's advisor on sports, Ali Mohammad Khawaja, who has been advocating the case of kabaddi to the President of Pakistan Squash Federation Air Chief Marshal Pervez Mehdi Qureshi.

While the average squash enthusiast is a bit non-pulsed about the place of kabaddi in squash's scheme of things, one must keep in mind the strategic value of a game like kabaddi to a game like squash. Kabaddi involves lightening forays behind 'enemy' lines, a tagging of the opponent, and a successful return to home base. The athlete depends upon his agility, and his ability to wriggle out of seemingly impossible situations. Whether Jansher Khan would make for a champion kabaddi player is not the point. Kabaddi would take care of Jansher's surplus energies during the off-season. This would let off the hook an embattled PSF that has increasingly become the target of Jansher's unwarranted aggression.

There is a general lament about Pakistan's inability to find a worthy successor to wear Jansher's mantle. The Pakistan Squash Federation is invariably held responsible for this seemingly disagreeable state of affairs. Perhaps the PSF must share part of the blame. It has too readily relented to the 'top down' approach propagated by the nation's professional squash families. Focus on a few specially chosen, 'pre-ordained' youngsters, and then pray to Allah for their success at the highest level. This approach has found favour with successive managements because of its generally undemanding nature.

The 'bottom up' approach, which the Aussies and the Pommies have relied upon with huge success, has for a pre-requisite a genuine grassrooting of the game through making the game more accessible to the public by constructing a large number of utility squash courts in every neighbourhood. There will be no need then for 'well planned talent hunt schemes'.  Worthy successors to Jansher will rise in the hundreds from the four corners of Pakistan, and not just from Nuakilli. Availability of opportunity outranks the genes factor in the making of world champions. With less than fifty squash courts nationwide, the present dismal state is really not surprising.

There is nothing in the PSF's constitution that hinders private sector initiative. It is time Jansher and Jahangir set up their own chain of squash training centres, and took their legendary rivalry to an entirely new plane. In the meantime, we look forward to a flourishing of the neighbourhood kabaddi club.