Once bitten twice shy..!

Once bitten twice shy..!

We may have many differences of opinion, about the way late Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto ruled Pakistan. But, there are no two opinions about his financial integrity and loyalty with the country. It is a known fact that the USA’s government at that time, used every bait and pressure tactics, to force ZAB to cancel Pakistan’s agreement of Nuclear Reprocessing Plant with France. A time came, when ZAB was forced to utter the following historical words, to the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger:

“If you spit and ask me to clean it, I will clean it. However, if you spit and ask me to LICK it? I will not”

The moral of the story is that the cricket lovers of Pakistan, can not imagine in their wildest dreams that the honourable members of the top PCB management, also headed by an honourable person Mr. Najam Sethi, will commit the same mistake again, of putting their hands in the same hole, from where they have been already bitten once.

There are reports that Mr. Moin Khan, is being again taken back into the folds of the PCB, for either the role of the chief selector or as a cricket manager.

We are at a loss to understand, why PCB wants to bring back the same person, who miserably failed, during the last many months in not just one capacity, but also in various positions as a chief selector, manager and the head coach, as well.

During these stints of Moin Khan, Pakistan lost an ODI and a Test match against the lowest ranked team Zimbabwe. Then, we lost a Test match in UAE against the South Africans, which was very winnable. Finally, our team’s dismal performance in Asia cup and the T20 World Cup tournaments, is so fresh in the minds that it needs no repetition. However, the lowest score world record (13/4 in 6 power play overs of a T20 match), our team created under the management leadership of Moin Khan, playing against the West Indian cricket team in Dhaka, will always haunt the Pakistanis and can not easily be erased from our shell shocked minds, for a long time.

As a manager, Moin Khan is also singularly responsible, for the irreparable loss to the Pakistani team, due to the side-lining of pacer Muhammad Irfan, because of his injuries, which were caused from the overplaying of this precious bowling asset.

If, the PCB is hell bent to take back Moin Khan after all these shameful and abysmal performances of our team, where he was part and parcel of all the botched selection of some of the known nincompoop players, as well as, the non selection of Anwer Ali; and also including Shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal, in the playing eleven, then why not call back Zaheer Abbas and Muhammad Shaoib, as well?

Here, the air must be cleared about the flimsy argument that Moin could not produce results, as the time was too short for him to prove his skills. No Sir, his incompetence has a very long story of our team’s failures, dating back since Mr. Najam Sethi took over. And also, if he was unable to give the desired results in this stint, then at least, the performance graph of our team, should not have fallen to a third class club level team. Who else except Moin Khan is responsible for this down slide?

Under the circumstances, if the PCB top notches don’t like the faces of some of the men of professional excellence, repute and integrity like M/S Javed Miandad, Wasim Bari, Muhammad Yousaf, Abdul Qadir and Amir Suhail; then at least they should consider Mohsin Hassan Khan, for the position of chief selector, coach or the cricket manager, who is equally renowned, famous, honest and proven successful person.

Mohsin Hassan Khan, is the man who delivered AMAZING results as a chief selector and even more AMAZING results as a coach, in much much lesser time than Moin Khan. Moreover, he is also the man, with most clean reputation. He has never ever being named in any match fixing scandal of Pakistan, the ICL (Indian Cricket League) or the IPL.

I don’t know why, but on this occasion the following couplet of the famous poet Mirza Ghalib, comes to my mind:

KA’BA KIS MONH SAY JAO GAY GHALIB ( How will you Ghalib Ka’ba face, )

SHARAM TUM KO MAGAR NAHI AATI (Ashamed of self you do not seem.)

Tags: My Views