The fiasco that has gripped the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in its second edition has all the trappings that go comfortably with just about anything related to the perception of the country in the eyes of the foreigners. And, frankly, much as we would like to argue against it, the perception is not always, or necessarily, wrong. It is at least, in a manner of saying, not the default position one can take anymore after years of helping form the very perception ourselves. It hurts. It really does. But that is what it is.

The matter of spot-fixing (or was it fancy-fixing ... or some such thing?) involving Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif is still in its early days of investigation, making it unfair for anyone to sit in judgment yet. There is no dearth of those who are already struggling to resist the temptation of being the judge, the jury, the prosecutor and, indeed, the hangman in their own mighty self-righteous selves, but that, again, goes well with being Pakistanis.

What the duo did or didn’t do is still up in the air. The frenzy to call them ‘the tainted duo’ is like putting the cart before the horse. It’s a cliché, alright. But a cliché is a cliché for a reason; it is a phrase overused years after years and centuries after centuries because it carries some undeniable truth about human tendencies. So, at least technically, they are innocent at the time of writing these lines, and are likely to be innocent when these lines appear in print unless something is proven against them or they make a public confession — as against the one they allegedly did before certain PCB officials. Both scenarios seem unlikely in the short term.


While Sharjeel and Khalid are technically innocent until proven guilty, Sethi and Shahryar are causing more harm than good in managing the affair


What we do know for a fact — an undeniable fact (stress intended and insisted!) — is the manner in which the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has handled the affair thus far. And there are culprits on that front. Two of them. Nawabzada Shahryar Mohammad Khan and Najam Aziz Sethi. And they have worked hard to earn the right to be the ‘tainted duo’ right now.

Sethiwas the first one to go public and in doing so he found it appropriate to say the PCB had known about spot-fixing at PSL beforehand. To be precise, in his own words, he knew it before the match. Still, the players were allowed to continue playing as he wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Going by certain media accounts, he wanted the deal to be executed on the field of play so that the culprit(s) may not be able to deny it later.

Twisted logic, one might say. It hurt the image of the PSL management for sure. It was like some other authorities in the country dealing with other, more deadly stuff, who claim they had background intelligence about an impending terrorist strike. The claim generally comes after the strike, leaving one to wonder why they could not act to pre-empt the strike. In this case, Sethi insists he purposely did not act to pre-empt.

Once that damage to PCB reputation and Pakistan’s perception was executed with tragic frivolity, in due course of time Shahryar went public and denied any such knowledge. This naturally caused more concern as it threw in the mix another unfortunate question: was it that Sethi had the information and chose not to share it with Shahryar? In fact, there is one more possibility. Is Shahryar being partial with truth? Or was that the case with Sethi? Of course they both can’t be lying, but who knows? This is actually embarrassing.

And it becomes even more dreadful when you realise how easily this embarrassment could (and should) have been avoided had Sethi decided to first activate his head and not the mouth. And if someone insists that he had done that, it would actually reflect even more poorly on the man’s net assets in terms of grey matter. There is a reason the ‘brain’ and the ‘mind’ are two different words in the language. One is congenital compulsion. The other is an acquired ability.

Though Shahryar had his hand rather forced once Sethi had uttered his words, his outright denial was just as disappointing and deplorable. For someone having spent the better part of his life in the wonderfully vague world of diplomacy, it was utterly inopportune. It is hard to imagine a more damaging damage-control exercise.

It has often been too much for Pakistanis in position of authority to do their loud thinking behind closed doors, and to open their mouths only when a consensus has been arrived at. It’s like asking for the moon really. The two — the ‘tainted duo’ — have been doing this for long. Voices coming out of their respective mouths have not always been synchronised well. Listening to them has often been like listening to a music system that has two seriously malfunctioning speakers that are bent upon destroying the stereo surround-sound effect that the machine is supposed to produce. There is more noise than sound.

And when that happens between the top two, it is only understandable that the lesser mortals only love to add their voices to the cacophony. Quite a few ‘sources’ have been quoted in media reports of late, and the official spokesman has had a busy time denying, correcting and clarifying various pieces of information. It is criminal chaos caused by those whose job it is to ensure there is none. Sounds very Pakistani, doesn’t it?

As last word came in, one ‘source’ was quoted as saying that a commission would be formed under the supervision of a retired judge, and that it will have as members “a respected member of the civil society” and “an eminent cricketer.” Things have been managed thus far with such inconceivable incompetence that there is no harm in reminding the two lordships that when they get down to filling the slot for the eminent cricketer, his name should be anything but Wasim Akram.

humair.ishtiaq@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 26th, 2017

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