CRICKET
Does Shahid Afridi deserve a farewell game?
When a journalist recently asked Shahid Afridi about his fi tness, he was met with a typical Afridi cross bat response:“ Alhamdulillah, tum jaise dus bande main abhi bhi sambhaal sakta hoon( by the grace of God, I can still take on 10 guys like you).” In the same interview, he expressed his desire to represent Pakistan. By some media accounts, Afridi was in talks with chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq and was seeking a farewell game against the West Indies in the United Arab Emirates later this month. His wish has been turned down for now. In October last year, Virender Sehwag tweeted,“ I hereby retire from all forms of international cricket and from the Indian Premier League. A statement will follow.” For some, it was a surprise announcement, presuming his retirement at the age of 37, with his last international game in 2013. Now in the wake of the Twenty 20 Masters Champions League, whose rules preclude any current international cricketer, Sehwag was forced to announce the obvious. With a shed of emotion ─ and perhaps fanning an open wound ─ he asked,“ Should not a player who has played 12 to 13 years for his country deserve a farewell match?” A pertinent question. Ask West Indies’ Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Leaked e-mail threads between Chanderpaul, coach Phill Simmons and chief selector Clive Lloyd portray a bitter tale. After being informed of his omission due to lack of form, Chanderpaul pleaded,“ My request to fi nish up with the Australian series is not asking too much. It gives me a chance to acknowledge my supporters at home and the possibility of the WICB properly honouring me for my contribution to West Indies cricket. I should not be pushed into retirement.” His request for a befi tting farewell was made in vain. Take that and put it against a series-long homage given to Steve Waugh in the Australian summer of 2003-04. The Border Gavaskar series was overshadowed by the presence and departure of one man. Ten years later, Sehwag’ s opening partner Sachin Tendulkar would have a tailor-made farewell for him in his home city of Mumbai against a bottomranked depleted West Indian team. Abdul Hafeez Kardar, widely regarded as the father of Pakistan cricket, was revered as a leader as equally as he was feared as an authoritarian. Exhausted at the age of 33, he hung up his boots after a tour of West Indies in 1958, and Fazal Mahmood succeeded him as captain. The next season, before a tour of India, Kardar came out of retirement. With an already-frictional relationship between the two, Fazal and Kardar faced off as rival captains in a trial game that was to decide the captain that would lead the
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team in India. Coincidentally, Fazal’ s father-in-law Mohammad Saeed was on the selection panel. Fazal got the nod ahead of Kardar, who was nursing an injury. Saeed’ s own career was earlier put to an abrupt end when Kardar, handpicked by Justice R. A. Cornelius, replaced him as captain of Pakistan. Saeed attempted a comeback, but Kardar reportedly contacted President Iskander Mirza to end Saeed’ s pursuit. A precedent was set; Pakistan’ s earliest cricketing heroes were trying to hold onto something that had already passed them by. Sixty years down, little changed. Fazal also felt betrayed when Imtiaz Ahmed and Hanif Mohammad dragged him down at the end of his career. Hanif was forced to retire mid-series after the fi rst Test of a series against New Zealand. Majid Khan played his last Test when he was ousted under the captaincy of his younger cousin, Imran Khan. Mushtaq Mohammad accused his friend, Asif Iqbal, to have conspired his ouster. An ageing Javed Miandad went out of international cricket fi ghting for his place in the side while trying to win a quarter-fi nal game against India in Bangalore. The careers of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Saeed Anwar were put to a forced end by ex-teammate and chief selector Aamir Sohail. If you look at stars like Abdul Razzaq and Mohammad Yousuf, it is hard to tell if they ever actually retired. Very often they appear unsure themselves, hanging on by the thread of hope and uncertainty in Pakistani cricket where anything can happen. It often does. The list is long and painful. Guards of honour ─ a recent phenomena in cricket ─ are hard to fi nd, and an Imran Khan farewell even harder to emulate. Younis Khan, too, retired from the game’ s shortest format after picking up the World T20 trophy for Pakistan. But his ODI retirement was controversial. After extreme insistence on getting a place in the ODI team, he announced his retirement on the morning of his comeback game. The Pakistan Cricket Board( PCB) Chairman Shaharyar Khan said,“ I am disappointed at not only his decision to retire from ODIs but also the timing of his decision.”“ If [ Younis Khan ] wanted to make a comeback to the one-day team and prove to people that he can still play that format, he should have just said it and asked for it and I guess the selectors would have given him the game time and opportunity,” said upset coach Waqar Younis. Easier said than done; Younis Khan later explained that his decision was not sudden or abrupt, but he had“ dreamt” about this many times, keeping it close to his heart. This is how he wanted it. It was important to him and he was not going to trust anyone with it, and least the PCB. It is common for