SO, the South Africans are finally coming. The sad manner in which the United Cricket Board of South Africa preferred to conduct itself in connection with the tour, I will be disappointed but certainly not surprised if it decides to call it off once again on one pretext or the other. They have behaved in a totally irresponsible manner that needs to be condemned by all and sundry.
The South Africans are a part of the international community and should have known how important home series are in terms of sustaining cricket at the grassroots level. Television rights being the major source of revenue in the modern world, it is a crime to deprive a sports body of its well-deserved earnings, especially when one has already enjoyed his turn and refuses to reciprocate.
How crucially linked are the two factors of television rights and finances of the host board can easily be seen by the fact that the South Africans had agreed to play an ‘unofficial’ Test when the visiting Indian team had refused to take the field in protest against action taken by the match referee against six or seven of their players. It is no secret that the South Africans had gone to the extreme not in the love of the game, but purely and solely because the UCBSA could not imagine losing money. And that was just a Test, not a whole tour, mind you.
Another show of desperation on similar grounds was provided by England when it refused to tour Zimbabwe for its World Cup match, citing reasons of political morality, but the English Cricket Board went out of its way to convince the Zimbabweans to undertake their scheduled tour of England almost immediately after the World Cup. The issue of finances clearly and blatantly elbowed out any issue of morality there was, if there was one at all.
If South Africa gets tummy cramps at the prospect of missing one single Test, and England takes a shameless U-turn against a hugely unfancied Zimbabwe, it becomes clear how important home series are for the hosting boards. For Pakistan Cricket Board, which is already suffering on this count for the last almost couple of years, it would have had a severely crippling effect.
Pakistan is a clear victim of the various currents, cross-currents and under-currents that mark man’s existence in the modern world. Biased and jaundiced images of life in Pakistan shown with an equally biased frequency by parts of the Western media continue to send the wrong signals around the world. The fact is that the whole of Pakistan — Karachi, Peshawar or any other city — is as safe or as unsafe as any other part of the world, including the US, and certainly safer than South Africa.
It is unfortunate that while dealing with tours to Pakistan, the ICC and its members tend to deal with the situation in isolation, regardless of whatever happens in the other parts of the world.
They have clearly shown double-standards in their practice and decisions, an example of it was the recent ICC meeting which was attended by all the heads of the member countries. The meeting took place even though there had been a major blast in India days before the meeting that claimed a large number of lives. One does not have to stretch his imagination to see what might have been the fate of an ICC meeting in Pakistan had there been an incident of half that grimness.
This is a clear-cut case of doublestandards being practised by the world body, and the publicized plan of Pakistan Cricket Board to take it up at the next ICC meeting and settle it once and for all is a logical step in the right direction. It is a national cause, and on this particular issue the whole nation should rally behind the PCB.
SO, the South Africans are finally coming. The sad manner in which the United Cricket Board of South Africa preferred to conduct itself in connection with the tour, I will be disappointed but certainly not surprised if it decides to call it off once again on one pretext or the other. They have behaved in a totally irresponsible manner that needs to be condemned by all and sundry.
