The Ashes are everywhere. The historic clash between cricketing rivals Australia and England is the word on everyone’s lips. Even people living far away from the game are finding themselves to be following the game one way or the other.Just recently an American babysitter got a free ticket to Australia to watch the game by Qantas Airways and Vodafone, the official Ashes sponsor. The “I am not a freaking cricket match” fame woman, who knows nothing about the game is now getting bashed by people for her accidental fame and at the same time currently has 9,028 fans that are following her tweets as she learns about the game.
The English Barmy Army and the Aussie supporters are heading towards Adelaide for the second Test match and the world has also set their eyes on the most anticipated games ever-and this is exactly how the cricket world is enveloped by the Ashes.
But as the media take their time in bashing Ricky Ponting and hailing Alastair Cook or analyzing about the teams prospects for the series, the Pakistan cricket is relatively silent for a couple of days.
It’s been almost a month since the last controversy stirred the country’s cricket. Days have gone by yet the aspiring are devoid of any inspiration to write something on their blogs. The many local channels poking fun on the Pakistani players, hit a surging low in ratings due to the lack of stories that could have lead to hilarious spin offs. The WikiLeaks documents have rocked the foundation of diplomatic relations yet the cricket world does not have anything to talk about other than the flat pitches that can been seen all around resulting in stalemate Test matches.
So how can Zulqarnain Haider sit around somewhere in the United Kingdom ever so comfortably? Who Zulqarnain Haider, you might ask? See this is what the writer means, the lack of any controversy has now made people forgot about run-away Pakistani wicket keeper. Did it ring some bells now? Well maybe not.
Zulqarnain Haider was (he retired) the very infamous Pakistan’s wicket keeper who had the potential to achieve greater heights in the team managed to slip away from Dubai right under the nose of his team who were sleeping blissfully dreaming of Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox.
The ‘dreaded’ morning was the day when Pakistan and South Africa were vying to win the One Day series in Dubai. The very cunning Zulqarnain had no visa but safely landed at Heathrow Airport, went into the questioning routine with the immigration people and managed to enter the largest metropolitan city of the U.K.
In between everything he had the time to update his Facebook status to tell the world in the most random English ever that he and his family has been receiving death threats as he refused to “fix” the South African matches (he himself was not sure who the threatening people were and what matches they wanted to get fixed). He received a lot of attention by his run away antic including some sympathies from the international media whereas he was shunned by political powers and current/former players.
So well eventually the hue and cry about Zulqarnain ended without the ICC or the PCB doing anything about the potential whistleblower. Oh wait the PCB did something a day ago- they submitted a report on his dramatic escape. Maybe they submitted this to a Bollywood hot-shot director for a movie project.
One must ponder on the fact that what actually does he want? He has repeatedly denied for “asylum” while saying he decided to leave as his family was in danger and did not trust anyone in the Pakistani board or the management. So while he enjoys the cold breeze in London as he drinks hot coffee and updates his family and the world via Facebook-what would he ever do without Mark Zuckerberg- his other half took matter into her own hands.
Iqra Haider called on a local channel and said that she wants to join her husband in London as she received anonymous threatening calls. She said that her two young children are not safe in Pakistan as the callers threatened to kill them if her husband decided to name all those involved in the corrupted scam. She really does miss her husband, doesn’t she?
