PCB: Pardon the ICL players, lift the ban!

India has refused to tour Pakistan. India’s tour was significantly jeopardised after a ghastly three days of terror in Mumbai that eventually severed the already thin-wired relationship between the two countries. It’s simply despicable. BCCI has timorously conveyed that the government of India had stopped the team to travel to Pakistan amidst the escalating tension regarding the country’s alleged role in fostering terrorism.

India’s decision to abandon the tour was a slap to people like Dr Nasim Ashraf who during his tenure tried untiringly to play second fiddle to the BCCI going to the extent of power-brokering for the multi-million dollar Indian Premier League (IPL), also insolently discouraging and banning the players defecting to the Indian Cricket League (ICL).

This decision was always questionable as it clearly showed that the PCB were doing it all on purpose regardless of considering, even for a minute, Pakistan’s own interest. BCCI exploited everyone around and tapped all the possible resources and opportunities to make the IPL a real stir in world cricket. It exactly happened like that.

Just to show solidarity and picturing the Asian bloc as one of the strongest around, they submissively requested Australia to tour Pakistan; the series was cancelled and BCCI regressed into backwaters leaving Pakistan completely unattended. And then was the shambles. Mohammad Asif, the leading fast medium bowler, was subjected to dope-sampling with the facilities being questionable. PCB continued supporting India. Why is that we resorted to meekly outlook and ending up cutting a sorry figure?

One must stand up and realistically analyse the situation; we haven’t been having our house in order; it’s true and we haven’t been taking the ICC standing; we should have been doing this for a while. Pakistan is a major force in cricket and regardless of the upheavals the world just can’t think of isolating us, reducing us to the ranks of Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and the West Indies.

And why is that the world cricketers from Australia, England and even South Africa heartily travel to India despite a sequence of terrorist attacks and explosions, be it in Mohali or Mumbai? It’s just about India being a great financial market and money talks while bullshit runs the marathon. And one must most conveniently say that there has been a geopolitical bias and also the world money knows every language except Urdu.

Time has come that we should try resolving our problems. First and foremost, Mr Ijaz Butt should take a major decision lifting the ban and allowing Pakistan players from the ICL to resume their international and domestic careers; this would at least show our revulsion to BCCI’s decision to cancel their tour to Pakistan. Mr Butt needs to formulate one of the first and the most appropriate approaches acting in such a way that his actions become a universal law to follow.

His predecessor’s approach was superficial and fundamentally self-contradictory. He now needs to discuss different solutions amidst the mounting pressure from people like Rashid Latif and Inzamam-ul-Haq, both ex-Pakistan Test captains. Regrettably banning the players defecting to the ICL was never rationally analysed.

In my opinion and I think I have all claims to opining on Pakistan cricket being a keen student since 1975, neither a society, nor a state or an organisation can exist without laws; if there is no law, there is no society, state or an organisation. Therefore enforcement of the codes of discipline and law, which is the society or an organisation’s foundation, means protection of the rights of an individual, individuals, society and the state. Thus, any person violating the law loses the right to be a society member, opposes social order and consequently must be deemed guilty and punished.

The right to administer punishment is the right of a ruler to make violators suffer. It is impossible to punish the ruler himself since the authority to administer punishment belongs to him. A ruler can retire or shown the doors due to his failures but cannot be punished; there is a contradiction in itself.

We understand that crime is a violation of social laws i.e. it is committed against the society or an organisation and therefore subject to punishment. People who observe the society or organisation’s laws are the society members, while people who commit crimes lose the right to be the society or organisational members and must be punished; true. Now is the question whether players defecting to the ICL were real sinners or were they harming their parent organisation, the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Violation of law can be a personal or a social crime; were these players violating any law; was there a ‘Defection Law’ to begin with? Such breaches must be reviewed justly and neutrally. Was theirs a personal crime or a coinage offence, treachery, rebellion or an act of treason? Then why did we make a hash of things? If Sri Lanka could soften its stance keeping in view its needs and the international demands then why were we trying to become more loyal than the king? An action cannot be considered criminal or unlawful if there is no crime there must be no punishment.

Punishment of innocent people is a result of a worthless legislation; this means that the system is unable to establish guilt and make a differentiation between innocent people and the law-breakers. No one has a right to do so, even the state, because this kind of approach would imply the possibility of punishing an innocent person to prevent him from committing a crime. Even more so, this approach would not require punishment of criminals, because the basis for punishment would not crime but benefit. The punishment concept would lose its meaning if a crime did not serve as a basis for punishment. In this case the punishment would be groundless and nothing else but a denial of justice.

The PCB must take a rational view and lift the ban allowing people like Imran Nazir, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Shahid Yousuf, Mohammad Yousuf, Abdul Razzaq, Imran Farhat and Mohammad Sami to restart their international careers; it would not only help these cricketers to lift their standards but it would also give Pakistan team a work-space to handpick horses for the courses. Why should we imperil our cricketing future trying to serve BCCI’s interests in the IPL? Mr Butt, in this regard, needs to put his foot down.

Enough; we have had a rollercoaster ride almost throughout; one chairman after another all dug their heads deep in the sand trying to submit to the ICC’s mindset instead of standing in adversity chin-up, seeking the rightful. The players and employees of the PCB and general public burn with anger and indignation over its failure to protect theirs and country’s cricketing rights; in these charged and emotional times, lines have blurred.

With India regretting to tour the PCB was effectively besieged. Now, it’s time to give the rejoinder.

Lifting the ban and allowing the ICL players to return to international cricket could just be an effective gesticulation; no finger-pointing is required, what the PCB needs to do is to start carving opportunities taking its problems to the ICC and hard-pressing them taking measures to give Pakistan a proper foothold. India has decided against touring Pakistan on the pretext of its alleged involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, it’s another matter that the Indian government itself stands indicted.

Politically and socially, India’s call to interrupt the scheduled tour isn’t far from ridiculousness. The Indian team should have stood by Pakistan cricket, one of the integral partners in the ACC. There were reports that some of the players didn’t actually want to tour, and it would really be interesting if they would still be living in Mumbai.They had the same fears as England’s cricketers did; and on one end their captain Mahendra Singh Dohni was requesting England to continue the series and on the other he has seen his folks backing out of the tour to Pakistan. Contradiction? Double standards! It seems to be a slender, nebulous, skewed and a subjective line.

It was indeed regretful that the BCCI let the decision taken out of its hands. It faced a weird impasse in addressing the concerns of its own players while trying to persuade the others to tour India. Pakistan’s present face is uncertain and it was likely to be doomed had Arjuna Ranatunga not extended the helping hand to give PCB a temporary reprieve. Nevertheless, there are big questions exploding from the recent developments about the future of world events, prime amongst them the already deferred Champions Trophy, and 2011’s World Cup, jointly to be held in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

BCCI should have realised that beyond all this lay the role of cricket as a bridge between the two countries. It is overpowering to think that India’s tour to Pakistan in 2003-04 almost didn’t take place. Like now, the players didn’t want to tour. Even so, the BCCI took a prudent decision and the series turned out to be epochal.

Of course, a lot is down to perceptions and discernment. India, a gigantic and pulsating democracy founded on Western liberalism, and an up-and-coming economic Goliath, presents a representation of solidity and potency despite its problems. Whereas Pakistan, which has staggered between dysfunctional democracy and army-backed dictatorship, and has quite unnecessarily acquired a reputation as a breeding ground of militancy, has always felt more hazardous to the West.

Also, India underpins the global cricket economy. The cessation of the Twenty20 Champions League unswervingly affected the finances of many cricket boards, and the IPL has shown the players the kind of instant fortune that would have been beyond their dreams a year ago. Just like the American economy, the Indian cricket involves all cricket nations. The global recession extended from the subprime crisis in America.

Everyone wants to be past the worst and the wariness; the fretfulness to keep Indian cricket strong is born, at least partially, of the natural impulse for self-conservation. It is indigestible but explicable.

The bottom line is this: Cricket and cricketers stand facing some tough alternatives. There are no complete pledges and guarantees. The menace is part of the job now, just as it is for businessmen, journalists, politicians or aid workers. For the line of reasoning that cricketers are high profile and more vulnerable, there is the counter claim that they take delivery of a much higher degree of protection than most others. The rewards of being an international cricketer are massive. Players must be prepared to recognise the perils and hazards that come with it. It’s just the question of timing.