pakistan’s top three players attended the court hearing at Doha, and between Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt, as delineable through their appearances there looked an evident confusion between the verbal, logical, analytical, visual, intuitive, holistic and cognitive functions. The decisions were deferred until February 5, and it is evident that bans for the three ‘tainted’ players are on the table. Debunking Butt and Asif wouldn’t make a difference, salvaging Amir could be essentially logical.
Amir isn’t merely a prodigally talented Pakistan fast bowler but a rare high quality international product who could be a genuine superstar. Abysmally, he wasn’t tutored or given the ‘right’ advice; his seemed a clear cut case of ‘bad precedence’ and ‘perilous influence’. Amir, if penalised would have to carry the stigma all throughout his life; none tried tutoring him the hazards of being part of a phenomenal module as early as eighteen years of age.
It is a neurological fact that the brain of high pedigreed sportsman is divided into two completely separate hemispheres. Each hemisphere processes information differently. Generally, the left brain processes information in a series. It thinks in language.
It works linearly and methodically. The right hemisphere processes information in parallel. It thinks in mental images. It sees the big picture. In Amir’s case, as it is with a plethora of high quality sportsmen, his right brain was not configured by the people who were nurturing him as he stepped into the intense and highly competitive world of international cricket.
It isn’t really about the morality that develops at home and in the blood, it is about the work ethics and the culture that a newcomer has to adapt as he sees the glitterati he comes in contact with; in Pakistan team’s case who was the real role model that he could emulate; Shahid Afridi (twice caught cheating), Younis Khan (relinquishing captaincy twice in his attempts to accentuate power), Mohammad Asif (twice caught accused of doping and for possessing contraband substance in his valet) or Salman Butt mingling with a suspicious upstart acting as a player-agent.
How could Amir see the ‘big picture’? I am pretty sure, keeping in perspective my experiences with the school, college, university, club, city association, regional and even the Pakistan teams, Amir like so many other flamboyant youthful and spectacularly talented cricketers would have only been advised about the straightening of the arm, pivot and the jump or at most about strategies and tactics to use in his bowling but not a minute spent on character building. When it comes to morality, we must know a dim bulb seldom lights up the corner office, even if the player is extremely bright.
If he could understand what morality could add to his cricket, he should have been able to figure out what to do. It seemed that Amir, unfortunately, exceedingly bright also had an exceedingly warped sense of what character and spirit of cricket was all about. Unwarping his mind shouldn’t have been difficult though it is a fact that in a denigrating society morality isn’t commons sense; nor is it easy to learn. Ironically, when Amir joined the Pakistan team it was already in a mess; badly captained and the PCB horrendously governed.
The only brand was presumably Shoaib Akhtar with a strong perception but he wasn’t at his prime, just a passenger car being sold under a tag of a supersonic. It seemed he was on the brink of being parked in history’s garage. Where were the role models? It was simply a question of two different takes to every deal. There was a morality take and a cricketing take; when he picked his first haul of five wickets in Tests, it was a landmark initially hailed as a blueprint of the global fast bowling industry. It sounded like a typical left brain cricketing take.
Where was the morality? Tampered, masked or brazenly ignored? Amir’s early history illustrates a young gangling boy, uncouth and raw travelling from his birth place Gujar Khan where he was born on April 13th, 1992 exactly nineteen days after Pakistan had annexed the Benson & Hedges World Cup at Melbourne. He arrived at the Bajwa Academy run by Asif Bajwa of the Rawalpindi Division Cricket Association.
Availing the boarding and lodging facility, Amir was spotted as being one of the outstanding blokes. He was instantly introduced to the Rawalpindi U-19s, intuitively, that didn’t make investment sense. It didn’t make cricketing sense, either. Why Amir’s early introduction to domestic cricket was referred to as a disaster; it wasn’t about his prowess and ‘zip’. True enough, but as cricketing people would point out, unrestrained and stupendous talent and the merger with frail schooling and meek moral development could destroy this brand; it happened exactly like that.
On November 6th, 2008 Amir made his first class debut for the Federal Areas versus North West Frontier Province at the Arbab Niaz Stadium. Two glittering off-drives towards the end of the innings plus a solitary wicket wasn’t really the start expected from him; he was only 16 years old. In his second match, his first in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy representing National Bank of Pakistan against the Habib Bank at the National Bank of Pakistan Sports Complex Ground in Karachi, as by default I was there, I saw him bowling at a blistering pace, with an angle that was slightly awkward, the slant and lateral movement, the rare in swinger though his palm was straight, an unwanted flexion of wrist during delivery still he had in him something exceptional.
He wrecked Raffatullah Mohmand and Younis Khan in his first spell and returning just after tea, he added two more wickets (Fahad Masood & Danish Kaneria) ending with 4-20 in 11.5 overs (4 maidens). So much happened to him so quickly and on tour to Kenya with the Pakistan ‘A’ team he wasn’t really appreciated for his binges and bunking out, late nights etc; in spite of a mention in the manager’s report, he still graduated to the senior Pakistan team and made his debut in Test against Sri Lanka at Galle. He bowled stunningly picking wickets of Warnapura, Kumar Sangakkara and Tilakeratne Dilshan in the first innings plus wickets of Paranavitana, Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene in the second to complete an auspicious entry into Test cricket.
The next two Tests brought him down to zero, wicket-less in four completed innings. Mediocrity prevailed in New Zealand but over to the neighbourhood, and brazen battering in the first innings, Amir rhythmically ripped Australia apart ending with 14-6-79-5 (Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Marcus North and Brad Hiddin) all recognised top tier batsmen. Amir was there to stay.
And in his last of the fifteen Tests he devastated England at Lord’s ending with 28-6-84-6 (including two controversial No-Balls). Ending with 51 wickets at 29.09 with 3 x 5WI, enough for Michael Holding to cry in a show, deeply emotional of why it had happened to Amir, naive, youthful and spectacular. Not only Holding but 180 Million people of Pakistan weep as the ICC tribunal is set to penalise him, certainly sure to be absent from the World Cup 2011. We shouldn’t mourn, we must not defy but define reality?
