An interesting similarity has emerged between the fortunes of our cricket and hockey players and the respective administrations that govern them. Pakistan won the tri-nation cricket tourney against all odds in Bangladesh even as the managers of the sport and one of the senior team’s mainstays were mired in controversy.
The poor cousins of Pakistani cricket stars — the much underrated hockey young guns — also fetched a welcome victory in the recently held four-nation tournament even as Pakistan Hockey Federation was engulfed in a maelstrom what with over-sized egos threatening to drown a new ray of hope provided by their wards.
Controversy is second nature to the administrators in this part of the world. Not unsurprisingly, this rubs off on the players, too, who perhaps feel small not throwing their share of the tantrums.
Let’s turn to cricket first.
Head honcho Nasim Ashraf, who continues to serve as the Pakistan Cricket Board chief at the pleasure of patron-in-chief Pervez Musharraf, sacked Director Special Project for the 2011 World Cup Salim Altaf early this month for what was described as “working against the interests of the PCB”.
Altaf was allegedly fired for leaking a damning letter that Ashraf wrote the team management for their capitulation in the round-match against India, Pakistan’s worst drubbing in an ODI involving the traditional arch rivals.
The former fast bowler, who like Ashraf owes his appointment to Musharraf, was reportedly given a choice to resign or face the axe. A refusal to comply led to his unceremonious ouster. Altaf then asked the PCB Governing Board members to set up an inquiry on the issue.
“Termination of services without a cause should be done gracefully. The termination has to be preceded by an inquiry,” Altaf wrote in a letter written to the PCB Governing Board.
“This letter is written to state the facts. The honourable members may, in their wisdom, decide to institute an inquiry into the sordid state of affairs,” Altaf requested.
However, the PCB Governing Board appears to have sided with Ashraf by ignoring the request for an inquiry.
The dismissed PCB official makes an interesting case for his innocence by first alleging that another high-up was responsible for leaking Ashraf’s scathing letter to the Pakistan team management before putting Ashraf in the dock by suggesting that the PCB chief had himself leaked information pertaining to positive dope tests of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif ahead of the 2006 Asia Cup.
This scribe can confirm Altaf’s accusation regards prior information on Akhtar and Asif before a ball was bowled in the 2006 Champions Trophy but to give the devil his due, it must be remembered that it was not necessarily a leak but a piece of information shared by the PCB chief with a few sports scribes to seek their advice on how to deal with the situation.
The PCB must have heaved a sigh of relief now that Mohammad Asif’s ordeal has ended after the Dubai authorities dropped the charges of drug possession against the pacer but it is a measure of how tired the board and management is of such shenanigans that Ashraf has set up a tribunal to proceed against the erring player.
The disciplinary case against the pacer will begin after the PCB receives a report from the Dubai authorities pertaining to his 18-day detention.
The PCB chief also announced that if found guilty, which may be a foregone conclusion given the circumstantial evidence, Asif will have to cough up all the expenses the PCB has borne in trying to rescue him from a damaging indictment by hiring the services of a legal expert and securing his eventual release.
That is the least PCB should do. Asif should consider himself extremely fortunate to have escaped punishment in Dubai, where possession of and carrying drugs is punishable in the extreme.
However, in a clear reflection of how suspect is the temperament of these so-called super stars, Asif got into a physical brawl with a Pakistani journalist after boarding the plane back home.
Incensed at a scribe for taking his picture by a mobile camera inside the plane, he grabbed and broke the mobile phone.
While in no way condoning what the scribe did — even if he believed he was just doing his job — Asif should have known better than to let his rage overtake him, especially in the backdrop of the coup de grace he inflicted on himself, Pakistan Cricket and legion of his fans. Like Shoaib, Asif too needs to be rehabilitated. If that means counseling, so be it.
Meanwhile, the House of Pakistan Hockey, too, is on shaky ground. Last week, the PPP-led government tried to pull a fast one by planting Asif Bajwa as the new Secretary of the hockey federation in place of  Khalid Mehmood.
The appointment was made by Sports Minister Najmuddin Khan bypassing the PHF president and former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. An incensed Jamali then met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to sort out the issue amid speculation that the Balochistan politician himself was being replaced by former Punjab PPP president and ex-hockey captain Qasim Zia.
However, given the fluid political situation, Gilani asked Jamali to continue as PHF boss as well as decide who would serve as the PHF secretary.
Khalid Mehmood was serving as the secretary with Jamali’s blessings and it is likely that he would persist with him although the PM is reported to have asked Jamali to accommodate Bajwa as well.
This apparent compromise was arrived at following high drama, when Jamali asked Mehmood not to relinquish charge to Bajwa and the doors of his office were literally closed on the PPP appointee.
It seems no high office in Pakistan is attained without some sort of a soap opera.