IT is time to prepare ourselves for the modern version of entertainment. It will definitely take some effort before everyone is able to recognise their favourites under the modified code of affiliations applied to the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

The task is complicated by the crossover of players from cities they have represented in the domestic circuit to the employers who can and want to financially afford them. The system has been in place globally for some time and it is about time that Lahore, Karachi and others also learnt to have paid labour doing it for money rather than boys from their own backyards accomplishing it for pride and a place in the national side. Let’s not reject it as a corrupted form of the game. Let’s simply ask the showrunners to adjust to the inevitable.

To be held on foreign soil, PSL is far from the indigenous, region-based models reformers such as Imran Khan had once fought for — models where fans were expected to back sides from their own region.

Let’s not reject PSL as a corrupted form of the game. Let’s simply ask the showrunners to adjust to the inevitable.

Actually, it is the opposite — barring the city labels that the five teams included in the first edition proudly but deceptively flaunt. The horses have been put on auction and the names which were so closely associated with a city have been bought by other franchises, threatening to leave the groups of fans that are slow to reconcile to the fashion in a quandary.

No matter how others before them had tackled such situations, these are serious questions for Pakistanis. How does one go about finding one’s favourite team? Does one stick to the hometown and/or the favourite city or is it that you follow the favourite players to whatever outfit they are snapped up by? Or is selection dictated by your choice of the coach and other senior people operating these franchises?

It will take time but there cannot be too much criticism of the ideology of the auction. That would mean a disagreement with the soul of the global system at present. This is how it is done. This is how it is going to happen here and everywhere. There’s little use repeating how Abdul Hafiz Kardar reacted when Sharjah hosted its initial tournaments all those years back. He was right that ultimately the ‘tail wala’ did cease showering the petrodollars on cricketers who joined his ‘circus’. Only there were others in the queue to take his place as soon as there was a vacancy.

You can either have the package or leave it altogether. If you are an India in a mood to control proceedings you might be able to resist and delay the introduction of a new element — such as the DRS (Decision Review System) to your matches. If you are a Pakistan craving cricket with an international flavour there’s that much more pressure on you to appear to be making the right noises and following the global path to the new game with unwavering commitment.

Pakistan has little to complain about when, for once, it has not actually been pulled up for hobnobbing with the mercenaries. Indeed, the changed, standards demand it should be encouraged to embrace the most willing and ready, failing the most famous, amongst these non-state actors. Some of them long ceased to be beholden to the call of national duty and are most likely to be found playing for themselves rather than country, club or franchise.

Minor issues can be raised, such as the one about Younis Khan not being there, although it is difficult as to whom the question should be addressed — the PCB or Younis himself who, like the PCB, has this reputation of bungling affairs every now and then? Hailed for his upright stands and his stubborn and strange positions in the past, the ace batsman is in serious danger of playing the role that so many of us are trying so desperately to avoid — that of an old-timer who cannot quite grasp and appreciate the modern and finds it hard to conceal the pain of being overtaken by the times.

There is nothing wrong with Younis Khan or any other distancing them from the noisy fair, but grace has to be displayed in order for a detractor to avoid ‘the loser’ calls. Younis might just have prevented himself from being tagged as a lesser player, given the ludicrous ranking system in which some of the finest Pakistan players are placed on rungs lower than their contemporaries such as Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik and a few international professionals. 

But if one player has been saved the ignominy of being placed in a category much lower than he deserved, the ‘supplementary’ selections such as Abdur Razzaq have all the more reason to outperform the more fancied hiring in the first edition of the PSL. If according to one view this and the treatment of Younis was ‘humiliation’ that should have been desisted from, the organiser would be happy that the message has been conveyed loud and clear. This is cut-throat competition and there is no room for lifetime employment and no part-time work for pensioners here.

Above and before all, we must all thank the gods for this — momentary? — relief from the PCB campaign to somehow persuade, in fact force, India to play cricket with Pakistan. It was getting increasingly embarrassing even for the thick-skinned amongst us.

So many are critical of Shahryar Khan’s handling of affairs at the board. So many want to point out to Najam Sethi the dangers inherent in acting too sure all the time. By Pakistani standards, it can be said that some sections were rather more tolerant than usual of the manner in which the pair had gone about looking for some Pakistan-India cricket in the immediate future. Of late, the duo appeared increasingly to be taxing the patience of cricket-loving Pakistanis. The PSL might just cool down things a bit on the India front.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2015