In his heyday, he used to give a lot of spin on the ball, but today there is hardly any spin in his words. Abdul Qadir of late has been saying things that are as unconventional as they are true. The ‘spin doctors’ of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would have a tough time taking a stand other than saying that they are doing what the others are doing.

His thoughts on the futility of having a national coach — especially a foreign one — are spot on if you are willing to see the world without blinkers. A lot of people have come and gone without — repeat without — adding value to the system. The most prominent of them all was Bob Woolmer who had a huge reputation as a coach who mentored the South Africans into a world-beating outfit. At our end, he lost his life but couldn’t do much beyond that.

When it comes to local high-profile coaches, Javed Miandad leads the pack of useless cogs followed not by any distinguishable distance by Waqar Younis. Low-profilers like Intikhab Alam and Mohsin Khan did much better not because they were good coaches but basically because they didn’t try to do too much.


Former leg-spinner Abdul Qadir has been making interesting noises of late. And they are not sour grapes for he did not throw his hat in the ring before speaking out


When we try to follow what someone else is doing (it’s hard to resist using the word ‘ape’ but let’s keep it for some other time!) just because it is fashionable, it hardly works because it does not take into account the ground reality. Take, for instance, the case of central contracts. Apart from serving the individual players, it is pretty much impossible to enumerate what it has added to the game in the country.

If you have any interest in ground realities, you would easily see that guaranteed payments don’t guarantee matching results in Pakistan; cricket or otherwise. The cricketers are pretty much like our parliamentarians. For those who might struggle to get the drift, an explanation would come handy. Just this past week, a parliamentary committee called for increasing the salary of parliamentarians across the board, stressing that they were “ashamed” of drawing their salaries from the banks each month; so low, in the view of the committee, the salaries were. The cricketers were making similar statements in the pre-contract era. But in both cases it would have done a world of good if they could be ashamed of not justifying whatever salaries they were drawing. Make them earn it, mate. Simple.

Abdul Qadir, the leggie of yore, is also quite frank in his assessment of the two gurus having a ball of a time as consultants to the PCB in its search for the national coach. One was a duffer in cricketing terms, the other was a genius. The common denominator between the two is a wonderful sense of opportunism. Qadir is not the only one bitter about the sordid drama; he has just voiced a sentiment that is common among those who know their cricket.

And, finally, the matter of chief selector Inzamamul Haq. He might have been a good batting coach, but selector? No way. If nothing else, just his time away from the local scene is a good enough argument against his nomination. How can one spot a talent when he has been away for as long as Inzamam has been? There are all sorts of words doing the rounds regarding who is actually behind his nomination.

It is some irony that Inzamam had left the national scene as a player surrounded by rumours and has returned years later in circumstances that are no different. It was one peach of a career that lasted 16 years. Regardless of what the PCB and the man himself said in public, the manufactured sendoff, especially the financial part of it, had only tarnished the very image that the so-called ‘deal’ had tried to salvage.

Though the PCB at the time categorically denied having offered Rs10 million to Inzamam to bring the curtain down on his career, those close to the happenings insisted otherwise, citing former Pakistan captain Saeed Anwar as the man who had made it all happen after he was approached by the PCB bosses in view of his close association with Inzamam. More than that, the way the episode had unfolded itself told a tale that was clearly much different from the official version.

When the news of the ‘deal’ had first appeared in the media, those who contacted Inzamam for a confirmation testified that the former captain did not have a direct contradiction. Instead, he simply tried to parry such queries. An official PCB statement the next day attempted to deny the existence of any ‘deal’, but only ended up confirming the perception when it said that the Board would be “announcing a decision on Inzamam’s future in the next few days” and that whatever it may decide, it would be “in the larger interest of Pakistan cricket’s future”.

As is public knowledge, the PCB, or, for that matter, any cricketing establishment worldwide, has no business deciding about the retirement plans of an individual; it is a decision that every player has to make individually. The Board can take a policy decision not to select the individual for whatever good or bad, valid or invalid reasons, but it just cannot force or arrange a retirement for anyone.

As for the ‘larger national interest’, well, it needs to be seen in the larger context of our national life. Sticking to cricket though, people have been, and continue to be, dumped in the ‘larger’ interest, and then brought back and elevated, again, in the ‘national’ interest. There have been many, like Rameez Raja, Moin Khan, Rashid Latif and others who were sidelined and dropped before being brought back and handed over the captaincy on similar grounds. Inzamam himself was a beneficiary of this approach. He was dropped after the 2003 World Cup because the then PCB management wanted a fresh start in the larger national interest, but a few months later, he was brought back and elevated as the captain because the country needed him!

Inzamam’s known penchant for a particular culture within the unit — a culture that has nothing to do with cricket or team spirit, by the way — is another key factor that is likely to influence his choices. If Abdul Qadir is worried, he has legitimate reasons to feel troubled. It is unfortunate that the PCB is not worried one bit. No one has said this thus far, but perhaps this defines the ‘larger national interest’ in the mind of the current PCB boss(es). Who knows!

humair.ishtiaq@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, May 8th, 2016

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