Parvez Jamil
Begging our hearts out for conflict and crisis management on the part of our leadership, specifically cricket management, are a humble of handful souls.
Rather than lamenting on the shocking end of the series by the Kiwis leaving our cricketing nation and die-hard fans in a lurch, it would have been a befitting and spontaneous response not to let cricket-loving crowd leave by organizing a marvelous match between star-packed and public fancy cricketers already selected or were at the stadium.
Grievances, protests and allegations would have definitely been suitably addressed at a little later stage, taking Kiwis to the ICC as said by Rameez Raja, the PCB chairman and dealing with the hidden hand sabotaging the game. But on the spur of the moment, there and then it was a helpless question of turning gloomy faces into gleeful fans as a pleasant surprise.
Including in the suggested two teams as selfless national responsibility could have been few cricketing heart throbs including a captain each from Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Amir and alike to spearhead a galaxy of selected or sidelined players as follows:
Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Asif Ali, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hafeez, Sohaib Maqsood, Azam Khan, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Wasim, Shahdab Khan, Hasan Ali, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Hasnain, Shaheen Afridi, Fakhar Zaman, Usman Qadir, Shahnawaz Dhani, Sharjeel Khan, Shoaib Malik and alike.
Even now it is not late to devise two enterprising teams for the remaining matches in Rawalpindi and Lahore. One never knows of England team’s tour of Pakistan backfiring too. As a preventive measure top national cricketers form top two teams enthralling the cricketing nation and providing top match fitness and practice for the forthcoming T-20 tournament in the UAE.
Remember here two teams are needed which means 28-30 cricketers including few celebrities, selected and sidelined players.
As such, the public stays excited and entertained by the traditional fervor of the big games and our players get ideal match practice for the tough T 20 contest, our management needs to multitask by taking to task the Kiwis by taking therm to ICC for accountability as vowed by the PCB. Indeed strategizing and not forgetting and sparing the hidden hand sabotaging the game.
