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August 31, 2006
The great Hair affair
With one stroke Darrel Hair transformed a hostile international media, aiming for the terrorist Pakistani blood, into one that proclaimed its sympathy and support from the rooftops of the world for the Pakistani victims, writes A.A.
The fallout of cricket’s latest controversy has generally been taken at face value, with worldwide public opinion arrayed massively in favour of Pakistan’s men-in-white presently showing the flag in the United Kingdom. Darrel Hair, that great Aussie subverter of Pakistani cricketing credibility, is squarely in the crosshairs. He has been roundly reviled by the world at large, except for a small segment of his countrymen for whom he can do no wrong.
So why has Hair been so unfair? Why has he committed a folly of such enormous proportions in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, the 26 TV cameras not withstanding that have the entire action covered from top to toe, and sideways to boot? Is it a straightforward case of unbearable bias against the upstart new child on the block who is now the unassailable sultan of swing? Has that been too much to stomach for a people born and bred on the Ashes? Was it just a fit of jealous rage seeing this young, impetuous Pakistani side playing havoc belatedly with the English, something the Aussies would prefer to do themselves?
All manner of questions have been posed since the last few days, and will continue to be posed well into the future, for that is the essence of the game. On August 10, four days prior to Pakistan’s Independence Day, the British police arrested eight British Muslims (dare I mention of Pakistani origin) accused of a plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. Ostensibly they had items useful to terrorists. The worldwide media had a field day indulging in their favourite pastime of Pakistani bashing and aggravating Pakistan’s hard image, as opposed to the soft image that we are so desperately courting.
By a stroke of luck the only damage control team on the ground in England was our men-in-white, led by a master craftsman of spin diplomacy much besieged at home. The squeeze was on, and the frontline ally in the war on terrorism was in a bit of a fix, to put it mildly. The Test series had ended badly for Pakistan, and just the dead rubber remained. In the estimation of some analysts Darrel Hair was recruited by the Pakistani think-tank to discharge himself most dishonourably on the field and generate the mother of all scandals. The arrogance that Hair displayed in his branding of the Pakistanis as cheats was reminiscent of the general Neocon attitude towards the world, particularly the Muslim part of it. The anticipated consequences of Hair’s hair-brained act were evident in full measure.
With one stroke Darrel Hair transformed a hostile international media, aiming for the terrorist Pakistani blood, into one that proclaimed its sympathy and support from the rooftops of the world for the Pakistani victims, mortally wronged by that much-despised symbol of authority with a long history of what is being termed as racial bias of ‘white’ cricket officials. From being the popular whipping boy, Pakistan now suddenly had the world in its corner, with Darrel Hair taking the brunt of the whipping in its place.
In the meantime, Pakistan’s secret weapon, Darrel Hair, is basking in the ‘glory’ of sudden celebrity, going out in a blaze of it. As his very lengthy career comes to an end he will be revered and remembered by some for having put these ‘pesky Pakis’ in their place. However, a secret few in Pakistan will be grateful to Darrel Hair for moving the world’s negative spotlight from the Ummah and Pakistan onto himself, the large sums of money transferred to a Swiss account not withstanding.
Then again, it could have been the sponsors of the series deliberately cooking up a storm with a view to maximizing viewer-ship and gate receipts in the One-Dayers to follow. Stage management is not unknown in the modern day world of made-for-television professional sports. Fans love a grudge match, and if that were the case then the objective was comprehensively achieved. Or maybe, just maybe, Darrel Hair did actually go bananas, a case of senility in old age, and showed his true, unsporting colours.
“It's a good thing that Inzy did not head butt Darrel Hair, for the old man may not have survived it, and turned from villain to martyr,” says another analyst. Fortunately headers are unknown in the game of cricket due to its hardball nature, although Zinedine Zidane is amply qualified to have a comment or two on such a course of action.
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