Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

I think the players could well take P J Mir to court for this, and they probably should do to so too, I know I would have done so if such allegations were thrown at me. Now I know exactly why Inzi was as emotional as he was in his press conference last week.

So what has Mir done to outrage me this time? Suggested that the team’s early exit in West Indies was down to their focus being on ‘religious activity and preaching’ rather than on cricket.

“I could not disclose this fact before” he innocently told the performance review committee set up to investigate the reasons for Pakistan’s performance in the West Indies, “but today I inform the media that most of the members had no focus on cricket, their fixation was on preaching, affecting the team’s preparations.”

Now before I attempt to disclose the flaws in his argument, let me give a you brief idea of what exactly he means by “praying”. You see, as Muslims, we’re obligated to pray five teams a day; once just before dawn (fajr), once just after noon (zuhar), once in the afternoon (asr) when the shadows have lengthened, once just after sunset (maghrib), and then once in the night (isha).

Each prayer, at its longest, should not take more then 15-20 minutes. Friday’s afternoon prayers are usually an exception which take longer because they’re accompanied by a religious sermon, called a khutbah.

Now even if we assume the team prayed in congregation five times a day, I just cannot see how P J Mir’s assertions that such an activity could amount to the players spending more time on their personal religious activities then there preparations can actually be true. The numbers just don’t add up.

Mir goes on to argue that the religious influence had gone “beyond limits”, but what are the limits? And who in all the world is he to set them? The team, reportedly, has been praying in congregation for much of Inzi’s three year reign, but until the Oval saga happened last year, very few people had an objection to this.

In fact at many times people spoke of it as a “bonding factor” but as soon as things have gone wrong for us on the field, the team’s private religious activities (and the fact that they do chose to pray in public does not make their activity on its own a public one, the choice to display or observe any religious belief either publicly or privately is that person’s own personal and individual choice, which no other person in the world having any right what so ever to question them) has become every third person’s favorite ‘reason for the team’s loss’.

Mir also goes on to complain about a particular instance where some players, led by Inzi him self, prayed in the galley of air crafts on flights rather than privately in their seats. He also offered to show “video evidence” to prove his point.

If P J Mir had any idea about the rules of praying (you cannot pray obligatory prayers while being seated, unless you are physically incapable of standing up, or suffer from an illness or medical condition which would be aggravated by praying normally) he would not have said this.

Then again, if he had half a brain, he would not have said any of this in the first place. But still, I’m not sure how praying in the gallery of an aircraft as opposed to in your seats would actually prove anything with regards to his allegation of the team’s praying being a distraction.

I’m certain that there is no way at all he can prove his claims at all. That’s why the opinion that the players should file a law suit against him.

When my husband was doing an internship at the microprocessor manufacturing giant Intel, zuhar prayer timings would clash with his office timings, as would asr praying timings during some part of the year when the days were smaller, but his employees never had any objection to him praying at his office.

My aunt has been working at at University of Duke, in North Carolina, for about a decade now, and she prays at her office too, her employees haven’t objected either. My dad works at Colgate Palmolive here in my hometown Karachi, where for 26 years he’s been taking prayer breaks during his office times to offer his prayers, needless to say, his employees too haven’t ever voiced much of an objection either.

And to my knowledge, non of these people have ever found their prayers to be a distraction to their work. Only in Pakistan, would you expect people to make such issues out of non-issues. As Ahmer Azhar Karimuddin notes, for some people in the PCB, talking about such non-issues is a convenient way to divert attention from their blunders, which have played a crucial role in bringing Pakistan Cricket to the state it presently is in.

…for Mir and Ashraf, the players religiosity is the only problem. Forget about their lack of professionalism. Forget about Shoaib Akhtar’s and Mohammad Asif’s doping issues. Forget about Shahid Afridi’s decision to threaten a fan in South Africa, and being saddled with a four match ban.

Forget about Inzamam’s and Afridi’s decision to appear in an ad in Malaysia for Pepsi before the World Cup, or for Afridi to go cavorting at a Zee TV junket in London mere days before the departure for the West Indies.

Forget about the casual termination of Waqar Younis days before the South Africa trip. Forget about the interference and distraction Nasim Ashraf was at the World Cup training sessions in the West Indies.

Forget about the abject lack of security which lead to Woolmer’s demise. Forget about the absence of a consistent and justifiable selection policy over the last year.

Yes. Let us forget about all of those things, and instead, let us talk about how many times our players pray and where they pray.

If we get them to stop praying so often, or at least make sure that they only pray in nuclear bunkers, all of our cricketing, on the field problems will disappear.

Thank you Mr. Mir for helping us talk about these problems.

P J Mir is right in a way, the focus of the nation’s cricket is certainly not where it should be, but religion has got nothing to do this drift in focus. Its got to do with the PCB.

A media manager’s job, I’m told, is to bring positive publicity to the firm or organization he or she is associated with. I can’t recall one instance, where P J Mir has done anything to even come remotely close to fulfilling this responsibility of his.

For a man who played a handful of matches for Pakistan, criticising people like Inzamam for their religious activities and how they shifted his focus from cricket, is such a loony, two-faced accusation, its not even funny. Clearly some people have no self respect. I seriously hope Inzi takes him to court over this.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Zainub Razvi.

Last few posts by zainub

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