It was in the summer of 2009, I witnessed Pakistan cricket at its best as Younis Khan’s men crushed Sri Lanka to lift the ICC World Twenty20 crown at Lord’s. Everyone connected to Pakistan cricket – the players, the officials, the fans – was over the moon as Pakistan celebrated their best cricketing moment since the 1992 World Cup triumph Down Under.
Sadly, I was once again at Lord’s in the summer of 2010 to witness what was perhaps Pakistan’s worst cricketing moment as three of the country’s leading cricketers became the subject of a Scotland Yard investigation. It was an incident that rocked world cricket and is now threatening to deal a fatal blow to the sport in our country following growing calls to ban Pakistan from international cricket because of a barrage of match-fixing allegations hurled at them.
From the dizzying heights of international cricketing glory to becoming a subject of suspicion, ridicule and even hatred, Pakistan cricket has completed a full circle within a year.
I arrived in London just after Pakistan concluded their second Test against England at Edgbaston. The tourists were 0-2 down in the series and things were looking gloomy for them ahead of the third Test at The Oval.
Just before the Oval Test, I had a detailed chat with Salman Butt, Pakistan’s Test captain, who was surprisingly upbeat about his team’s chances in the third Test. “All we need is to take our catches,” he told me. Pakistan did that and to everyone’s surprise won the Test to keep the series alive.
But all the good work went down the drain as Pakistan made a mess of the series finale at Lord’s that finished just a day after startling allegations of corruption against Salman and two of his teammates – Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir.
It was a Saturday night when the scandal broke and after that cricket just took a backseat. Following allegations hurled by News of the World that Asif and Amir bowled no-balls on order during the Lord’s Test, nobody was talking about the cricket.
The next morning Pakistan went through the motions and came out comprehensively beaten by England, who took the series 3-1.
Many thought Salman Butt and his team would shy away from the media, but the young captain was brave enough to come to a post-match press conference along with his manager Yawar Saeed. However, Salman’s body language wasn’t very positive as he failed to really express himself. He tried to hide behind Yawar but the manager didn’t sound very convincing either.
The tainted trio didn’t talk to the media after that day. The next morning Pakistan’s management decided to take the team to Taunton – a day ahead of schedule for a warm-up match against Somerset. If they thought that Taunton was far from the media glare, they were wrong. Media people had started swarming the team’s hotel in Taunton even before the Pakistan team’s bus arrived there. Salman, Asif and Amir decided to confine themselves to their hotel rooms, but it was only after the trio left for London for questioning by Scotland Yard that things began to move towards normality.
Pakistan beat Somerset in the one-day practice match and then left for Cardiff, but the real action was taking place in London where Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan’s High Commissioner, decided to act as a saviour for the players. Hasan declared that he believed that the players were innocent, an announcement that forced the International Cricket Council (ICC) to issue a statement suspending the three players. The next morning, Haroon Lorgat, ICC’s chief executive, addressed a press conference at Lord’s and reiterated ICC’s claim that it had zero tolerance for corruption in the sport.
Lorgat didn’t really sound convincing when he was questioned on the ICC’s inaction against alleged match-fixing in cricket. Many now believe that the game’s governing body is to be blamed for the current scenario because in spite of repeated warnings from various quarters, it has failed to keep the sport clean.