Has Pakistan Cricket Board missed the initiative?

BY talking tough now Shaharyar Khan has at least partly made up for the blundering man he came out to be in the first 48 hours of The Oval confrontation. He can be dangerous when cornered. That's what bureaucrats are best at. And if ever we need him this week to pull his contacts in the foreign ministries to put pressure on their cricket boards, it is now. When it's his own survival, he can maneuver brilliantly and by default can help Pakistan and Inzy.

Yet, has he missed the initiative here? The ICC hearing before the ODIs was Pakistan's best hand on the poker table as PCB and the 'civilized world of cricket' face off continues.

PCB, it seems, has blinked first. They had made a mess of their case. Ironically it is Hair who has bailed them out, otherwise Inzy was heading for a ban and the ODIs were reading as One Day Improbables.

If, on the 21st, the PCB chairman thought that by confirming the ODI's he had appeased ICC enough to negotiate a lesser charge for Inzy, he was soon pinched back into the real world.

For within hours of him announcing that the ODIs would be played, the ICC had expressed full intention to try the Pakistan captain over ball tampering charge as well as bringing the game into disrepute. Following Hair's e-mail revelations, everyone's forgotten about ICC's original intent, which is still lurking in the shadows.

After the leaked emails between Hair and ICC, Pakistan was in a fantastic position to get Inzamam absolved of the potential charges, because Hair's charge had lost its credibility and ICC had to placate Pakistan. Clive Lloyd was available if Madugalle wasn't and the former West Indian captain has a history of being sympathetic towards Pakistan's cases as match referee.

The postponement of the hearing has given time to ICC for damage control following the exposing of Hair's selfish motives, and cleverly rescued the threat of drowning revenues, to save which they would have agreed to any demand by Pakistan.

If PCB get to the civil courts in case of a ban on Inzy, ICC will likely settle out of court by agreeing to reduce powers of the umpires in future or by altering the result to a draw knowing full well this sort of thing comes once every two generations at least. Small penance to pay in return for disciplining a player from Asia.

ECB desperately wanted their promised 10 million pounds sponsorship money from the ODI series and Inzy had said that if he was handed the ball tampering charge, Pakistan was flying home. Now we must pray that the momentum against Hair doesn't slow down by the time of the hearing in end September.

So Pakistan play on, as promised within hours of Black Sunday by PCB chairman and watered down by him after the players said next day they were keeping their options open. (Is the PCB chairman in control? Does he have the required command over the team?). There are reports he was losing patience after he didn't get the ODI go ahead from the players, which shows the team is not giving him much benefit of doubt to him.

He has the support of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. But India originally sided with ICC and unless they've now covertly agreed to back Pakistan in future, we can still be outmaneuvered.

However, the forever rudderless and oscillating Shaharyar, (“Hair is a good umpire”), has finally decided to speak the language of Inzy. Obviously his survival instinct born out of four decades of bureaucratic practice has seen that if you can't shift the responsibility that comes with the job, might as well stand up and make the right noises.

But typical of PCB to have hired a law firm from foreign lands. Is the chairman now telling the world we have no Pakistani attorney worthy of defending our team captain and who can fight for his country's name? Not even after top lawyers volunteered? Would India have done that? Has the PCB Patron taken note?

Another fist full of dollars spent on foreign talent. I wouldn't be surprised if they were recommended by the ECB, for the lawyers immediately asked for postponement citing time to prepare.

It's sad that the biggest case to hit our self respect and we hire foreigners. Cases of principle are better fought by compatriots. Even now they can release the firm as Hair has given them free evidence to win their case.

If the PCB have hired them because of sports expertise it shows that they still don't get what the fundamental nature and scale of this case is. We would have won in civil court hands down and victory would have done wonders for Pakistan's image – that we won through our own lawyers.

Shaharyar clearly ignored our President's pledge of Pakistan First.

Has he forgotten that the western dream died with the Seventh Fleet?

Even if the High Court overturns any incoming ban on Inzy, the PCB can't justify this expense when Pakistan's cream had volunteered. And any other result for Pakistan is meaningless. We already know where Hair belongs, that the law is a bad joke, that we are not cheaters and that in their hearts, a part of the cricket world doesn't agree with us on any of this.

The killer punch has come from Ehsan Mani, former president of ICC, who has shown that despite years of living in the UK, he remains a more patriotic Pakistani. He has revealed that he told Shaharyar to give a complaint in writing against Hair last winter so he could remove him from future Pakistani games. It was a letter that never arrived at ICC offices. Perhaps because it was never written.

This must be the costliest correspondence the chairman never made.