April 13, 2007	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24, 1428

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KARACHI, April 12: While the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) continues to hold its supposedly post-World Cup inquest — through the Ijaz Butt-led three-member performance evaluation committee — there are still no signs of who’ll eventually succeed the retired Inzamam-ul-Haq as captain.

Almost four weeks have lapsed since Pakistan were sensationally ousted from the World Cup following a shock three-wicket defeat at the hands of minnows Ireland, hardly a day goes by when the pundits of cricket don’t lay accusing fingers at the team’s shameful performance.

The same old questions are repeatedly asked and debated whichever TV channel one flicks on. Former players such as the controversial Sarfraz Nawaz has cashed in on the opportunity to speak his mind and prove that he is the most patriotic citizen of this nation of 160 million.

Unsurprisingly, Sarfraz voiced his concern when he told a British newspaper that the tragic death of Bob Woolmer could be linked to match-fixing mafia soon after the Pakistan coach was found mysteriously unconscious in his hotel room some 18 hours after Pakistan’s defeat against Ireland.

“I know five bookies made their way to the West Indies. I can help trace them. Perhaps we can even get some clues from the players,” Sarfraz told The Sun, while adding, “Woolmer’s death is connected with the match-fixing mafia.”

The 59-year-old former Test paceman alleged that Pakistan’s matches in the World Cup were rigged. “I believe the Pakistan games were fixed. There is a dark side to cricket. The game got on top of match fixing for a while but it has never really been stamped out.”

Sarfraz also feared Pakistan’s first World Cup game against the West Indies was fixed and even called for a review of the game’s video footage. He claimed the body language of (Pakistan) players showed they were not trying to win. But who is prepared to take him seriously apart from a few people like the outspoken Senator Enver Baig?

This is not the first time that the Pakistani cricket authorities have instigated a soul-searching inquiry into a debacle. We have all heard it before. Lt Gen Tauqir Zia (the PCB chairman at the time) did the same when Waqar Younis’ team failed to progress beyond the preliminary round of the 2003 World Cup in Southern Africa.

The impact of that three-man committee’s report resulted in eight senior players being shown the door. But gradually some of those players were drafted back into the team.

More incredibly, Inzamam, the man who mustered a mere 19 runs in six matches during the 2003 World Cup, gained the Pakistan captaincy once Rashid Latif was handed an ICC ban for falsely claming a catch in the Multan Test against Bangladesh.

This was the start of a long period when Inzamam ruled Pakistan cricket with his ultra-defensive leadership. As the months passed by, Inzamam stood firm like the Rock of Gibraltar amid numerous crises faced by Pakistan, both on and off the field, with no end to the ad hocism in the PCB set-up.

Thrice the PCB saw change of command right at the top. Tauqir quit following a TV rights controversy which resulted in the first game of a five-match ODI series against New Zealand blacked out worldwide because a private satellite TV channel had acquired the rights.

It may be mentioned here that as his captaincy tenure progressed, Inzamam began to shun the media since he had signed a lucrative deal with the same TV channel. The few times that Inzamam did make himself available for interviews with the media was at the official briefings.

Shaharyar M. Khan, the humble diplomat from the Pakistan Foreign Service, was the next PCB head to bite the dust, not long after the infamous Oval Test fiasco when Younis Khan refused to become a ‘dummy’ interim captain while Inzamam served out a four-match ODI ban for bringing the game into disrepute in the wake of The Oval drama.

Barely six months after taking over, Dr Nasim Ashraf, the current PCB chief, resigned but rescinded his decision like Tauqir Zia once did in October 2002, after the PCB patron-in-chief, President Pervez Musharraf intervened.

Now that Dr Nasim has been entrusted with the cumbersome task of putting Pakistan back in its rightful place as one of the cricketing giants, it is interesting to observe the performance evaluation committee (PEC) carrying on with its fact-finding mission in the post-World Cup 2007 scenario.

The blame-game goes on unabated as the witnesses, one after the other, appear before the committee to find the real cause of Pakistan’s unexpected first-round exit in the mega event.

P.J. Mir, who was always going to be a fateful choice as the team’s media manager, has gone on to say that the team was more focussed on religious activities than the task on hand which is totally unacceptable to the general public because this was not the first time players had been involved in such activities.

Pakistan cricket has had its golden moments even when our national heroes were seen praying in unison in recent times. At least one should remember that by participating in such (religious) activities, a number of players stayed away from late night binges and other frivolities which had been the case in the past.

The other day, Javed Miandad called for a drastic change in the PCB attitude towards the players so that the national team recovers from the spate of tremors. He is spot on in saying that there is abundance of player-power and groupings existing in Pakistan cricket.

Now this has to be stopped, once and for all. Miandad, the former captain and coach, also pinpointed that certain players took their places for granted. Already, a campaign has started in which individuals, including a few current players, have started lobbying for the Pakistan captaincy.

Dr Nasim is keen on having Younis, who has been long groomed for the job as the logical successor to Inzamam, provided he is willing to take over the reins. But Younis has already expressed his reluctance citing player-power and groupings in the side.

Of course, it is the domain of the PCB to implement a check-and-balance policy to control the players and those associated with the team. But the board’s unwillingness to give the incoming captain enough power is only going to aggravate the situation.

Why can’t we follow the examples of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand? Remarkably, Australia have had just four regular skippers since 1984-85 and New Zealand, astonishingly, just one — Stephen Fleming, who became his country’s youngest captain — back in February 1997.

And every time the transition was smooth while Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and the incumbent Ricky Ponting were honoured with the most prestigious job in Australian cricket.

Likewise, South Africa, despite the match-fixing upheavals, had Kepler Wessels, Hansie Cronje, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith as fulltime captains, since their readmission to the ICC in 1991.

Pakistan cricket must learn from these and move forward because at the end of the day, no one is bigger than the game.