Yousuf enters the day of destiny

How often is it that a team enters the fourth day of a Test match that has seen a scoring rate of less than 3 an over with one batsman on 57 and another on 1, and the opening session is compulsive viewing?

It gets more amusing. All eyes are not on the man on 57 as to whether he'll get another 43 to complete his century but on the man on 1 and whether he'll get another 46. (Just to play the Da Vinci code: Yousuf walked back on 29/11/06. Add up the numbers and you get 46, exactly the number he needs to break the record. Yousuf walks in today (30/11/06). Add the numbers and you get to 47, exactly the score he needs today. Eerie isn't it?)

As for Hafeez, very rarely can one batsman who has batted with such composure, determination and skill be so anonymous. He might as well not exist. From a marketing angle I would say he would receive more attention were he to get to his hundred after Yousuf gets to 47. There have been many such events before when batsmen or bowlers are nearing a record. There was the moment when Wasim was first to cross 500 ODI wickets, when Gavasker was first to cross 10,000 Test runs and when Rod Marsh was first to 300 Test dismissals.

But this is different, very different. With all those records there is no deadline. If you don't do it in this game you can do it in the next. This one is Sir Don Bradman walking out to bat at Headingley in 1948, needing 4 runs to end his illustrious career with a Test average of 100. This is his last innings in Test cricket.

This one is like Sachin Tendulkar on 88 against New Zealand in 1990. He needs to score another 12 to reach a Test century to overtake (at that time) Mushtaq Mohammad as the youngest player to score a hundred in Tests. This is his last Test innings before he turns 17 years and 78 days. Another 35 centuries after that don't matter.

This one is like Jahangir Khan entering the court for his tenth consecutive final in the British Open. He has won the last none. He can lose this one and win the next five but it won’t matter. The chance to win ten in a row will be gone forever.

These comparisons are technically invalid you will say. Yousuf can always try for another shot in one of the next calendar years. But how many of those will carry a summer tour in England?

At the most you can relegate this to a morning of a World Cup. There will be another final if you don't win this one. Maybe for the country. But what about the individual? Platini was the greatest footballer of his generation and never won a World Cup medal. France still won in 1998, but Platini had retired long ago.

For the one person, there are some milestones that he knows will come once in a lifetime. This one has arrived and challenges Mohammad Yousuf. This is sudden death playoff. This is a total disagreement with Ian Fleming. Here, you don't live twice.

Last night must have been a very committed night for Yousuf and his supporters who believe in the power of prayer.

No doubt in many places last night special prayers have been offered for Yousuf to get the 46 runs he needs this morning. But reward will come when the time is right or will not come because there is a reason.

Ask Javed Miandad and he will say that they won the 1992 World Cup because of divine help that came due to the prayers of elders at home. Ask Saeed Anwar and he will say that it was not destined for the team to win the 1999 final.

Bradman was bowled first ball and Tendulkar was out for 88. Will Yousuf get to 47?

Pakistani Britons fighting a losing battle

The death of Alexander Litvinenko, a self-exiled former Russian spy, under mysterious circumstances in the heart of London last week has for the time being diverted the attention of the media, social scientists and political analysts from what now seems to have become almost the sole preoccupation of one and all here --- how to tackle the perceived threat of terror. And by some unfortunate association, Islam, Pakistan and British-born Pakistani youth have remained the centrepiece of this debate for some time.

There is also a renewed attempt on the part of sociologists to find new ways of living together without stepping on each other’s toes in this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. It is no melting pot like America. Neither is it Saudi Arabia where no migrant can get citizenship. It is no Malaysia either where only native Malays are first-class citizens.

Most of the migrants in Britain, despite having been allowed to obtain citizenship and having been treated at par with native-born citizens under the law, seem to be living by the values of the countries of their origin. Most of even those who were born here seem to have adopted the same values despite having been exposed to British values from birth. In fact British laws, based on liberal and tolerant values, appear to have facilitated the emergence on British soil of the traditions of every society from where these migrants had come.

That they lived happily alongside white Britons ever after without interfering or trying to impose their values on their hosts was perhaps the reason why they were welcome with open arms all through the 20th century.

Nobody here knows when all of this started changing, especially the emergence of an antagonism between Muslim Britons and non-Muslims ones. It was certainly not the attack on New York’s Twin Towers on Sept 11, 2001, that made the difference. In fact when Londoners came out to protest the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, it seemed as if the whole of Britain -- both native-born and immigrants -- were marching together shoulder to shoulder. Even the terror attacks on July 7 last year2005 on London tube trains and buses were seen here as a misplaced response of misguided Muslim youth to Britain’s role in the Iraq invasion rather than any assertion of alien values.

There seem, therefore, to be no easy answers to the deepening crisis between Islam and the West. There are no well-defined front lines in this crisis. Both sides seem to be right and wrong. And both seem to be pursuing a just cause.

A veil or a head-to-toe burqa should never have been a problem for Mr Jack Straw in a country where hijab perhaps is more common among its Muslim women. And for a teacher or a legal professional a veil should certainly have been an impediment in the best of circumstances.

When rich Arabs from oil-exporting countries visited Britain with their burqa-covered or veiled women, nobody had any problems coming across them in upscale shopping centres of London. But for students to understand what their teacher is saying from behind the veil or for a judge to make out the argument he is hearing through the veil, should really be a problem. Then why insist on it? But then there lies the problem. For the believer it is a sin to give up the burqa or the veil, no matter what the compulsions or circumstances.

This brings to mind another question: why does one leave his or her own country and come all the way across the seven seas to a foreign land? Most of the time it is in search of greener pastures, and not to preserve and promote your religious values in the adopted country. If this objective clashes with your ability to practise your faith the way you think is the right way then would not one expect you to go back home where you think you have the freedom to practise your faith as you understand it?

For the faithful the choice should be very clear. But then what does one do if you were born and bred in Britain? It is the question of identity that is rankling young Muslims of Britain. These youngsters would be lost if they went back to the countries of their parents. But they are more lost in the country where they were born because the set of cultural and religious values that their close-knit families had taught them sets them apart from the mainstream population.

So there live in Britain two sets of people, equal in the eyes of the law but otherwise unequal in all other aspects, especially in their Britishness. It is almost impossible for a non-Muslim Briton to understand the fury of his Muslim countrymen over the publication of the blasphemous cartoons. Similarly, it is impossible for a Muslim Briton to understand the psyche of his non-Muslim compatriots who ridicule religion and prophets in the name of freedom of expression.

Most of the British-born Muslims have roots in Pakistan. And as they searched for an identity, perhaps the lure of the struggle against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s and the other inside the Indian-occupied Kashmir in the 1990s had attracted these young people.

And while the overseas Indians and Chinese, who made good in their adopted countries, were helping the economies of their respective countries of origin, overseas Pakistanis decided to help their parent country by taking up arms.

And some of the misguided British-born Pakistanis, inspired by these jihads, seem to have taken upon themselves to preach their own misconceived values learned from half-baked Pakistani imams. This is making it even more difficult for the British populace to resist the escalating bigotry within. And it is also making it extremely difficult for Pakistanis pursuing their economic objectives or educational goals to counter the growing perception here that they are the root cause of all the terrorism in the world.

Pakistan itself seems hardly in a position at the moment to help. Britain, on its part, is trying, but its efforts so far appear to have failed to make any difference. The Pakistani community here does not have a single voice. It is a house divided and therefore not in a position to lead the community out of the corner in which it has painted itself into. So, at this point in time it seems like a lost cause.