It has been a decade since we last featured in a second round game of the most

prestigious tournament of all - the ODI World Cup.

When was the last time we managed to win a test series against the world’s best
side? Back in mid 1994. When was the last time we managed to beat them in a test
match? Back in late 1995. With a thirteen year long drought at our back, what our
source of optimism in giving the Aussies a tough fight, is beyond me.

We never lost a test match at Karachi, but squandered one to the feeblest and
hopeless of all sides - England back in 2000.

We never lost to India in our own backyard, but have done that twice in a row -
that too in 2004 and 2006!

If one were to revisit the news archives of the past 15 years, our hearts would be
gladdened to see our name featuring more times than of any other side but the
euphoria will vanish as quickly as it rose, because we have been notorious not
famous! We haven’t won anything on the field and have lost everything off it.

Match fixing scandals, internal strifes, doping issues, players attacking fellow
mates with bats, coaches being passed around like a hat - one breathed his last
under dubious cirumstances - managers being juggled around as if they were a
plaything and a host of players competing fiercely in a merry go round contest to
decide the issue of captaincy. Players being booked for criminal offences ranging
from drug addiction to sexual assaults, a few of them being hauled up, thrown into
a cell after due thrashing.

So acute has been the misery of this befuddled, exasperated and hapless cricketing
mad nation, that more often than not they have found their hearts being pierced
and crushed in a pincer of atrocious on field display and shameful off field
antics on part of its cosseted and mollycoddled stars.

While we have seen our heroes cowering behind the excuse of fitness issues and
walking out of a series against Australia, only to leave their side in a lurch and
watch it being eaten alive by the rampant world champions, on the other hand we
have been subjected to the trauma of being labelled as a nation of cheaters,
riding roughshod over our glorious tradition of producing world class fast bowlers
- courtesy the ever derailed and decrepit Rawalpindi Express and a McGrath wannabe
mouthy git.

For a side, which remained a darling for the fans around the world for their
exquisite skill in the field and the uncanny bouncebackability, the typical
volatility, and a definitive chuzpah which characertised most of their legendary
feats, spanning over several destinations and many decades, we now are regarded by
everyone - players and fans alike - as a spent force.

If we are following in the footsteps of the Windians, and our empire is about to
go the Caribbean way, then one must say that we already are in the transit lounge
of Hong Kong airport (half way through the journey).

Today, the magnificent and majestic Gaddafi Stadium, with its towering electricity
poles, beautiful and artistic architecture, lush green outfields and gigantic
stands-bears a sombre and plangent look. When it watches the land being owned by
midgets and clowns, where once giants and legends walked, it utters a ghoulish
cry, just like a widow who has just lost her husband. How elegiac, how sad and how
excruciating the experience would be for the exotic birds, who would fly in from
word over, perch themselves atop the roof of the stadium and relish the staggering
feats of a few remarkable humans and then fly away, taking with them the stories
of the heroics of those knights and spread them all over the world. Just how sad
would those singing larks would feel when they see a clumsy actioned Sohail
Tanveer dishing out harmless dobbers and being pumelled with great deal of disdain
by everyone and charlie’e aunt - from the same end from where the KING KHAN began
his conquest of extending his empire.

What would be going through the hearts and minds of those gardeners, cleaners,
menial workers who have dedicated their lives to this grand stadia after seeing
weak kneed nincompoops like Nasim Ashraf or a waffling nitwit like Sheheryar Khan
sitting on the same seat, as once held by a born leader like Noor Khan or an
erudite savant like Nasim Hasan Shah?

What would Sufi Jaleel would be thinking? Gone are the days when the only thing
travelling on the same wavelength as that of Imran Khan’s pace were his deciples.
Pride of Pakistan’s passion and commitment were only matched by the fierce
patriotism and electrifying shreiks of Chacha Cricket!

Whom should the famous chacha cricket root for now? Danish Kaneria? Yasir Arafat?
Sohail Tanveer? Sami Niazi? or Muhammad Asif?

Our tragedy is, that a multitude has been made to defray the costs arising out of
the stupidities of a few. A whole nation is paying the price for the follies of a
select clique of self appointed saviours. A whole cricketing fraternity is being
asked to cleanse the augean stables, defiled beyond imagination by a few humbugs.
Those self appointed angels, self declared saviours, and self accredited savants
have destroyed our cricket to such a degree that it would require gigantic efforts
and persistent prayers on part of the nation to revive the sagging the health of
this ill fated and nearly doomed patient.

In times as desperate as such, with a clown like Nasim Ashraf heading the board, a
bigger jester Zakir Khan ruling the roost, a marble faced beaurucrat Shafqat
Naghmi pontificating about the vagaries of a game he has never played, an
attention starved simpleton who can be easily duped at the internet-or is a
blatant liar-leading our side, a hopeless trundler like Sohail Tanveer opening our
bowling in a test match and likes of Khurram Manzoor and Khalid Latif being
thought of as our future hopes, its time for me, as a cricketing fan and former
player, to roll out my prayer mat, initiate a prayer and prostrate myself before
the Almighty, begging him for forgiveness for our sins, and supplicate him to
bestow upon us another one of his chosen emeralds, who through his refulgence can
eliminate the darkness surrounding our future, like he did way back n the 70s.

I would beseech, implore, entreat the Almighty to plz plz plz plz send one more
Imran Khan to us, who can inspire this distraught and disillusioned cricketing
nation, and steer our wrecked boat, being tossed around by the raging waves, to
safer shores.

Please God, we have given your favorite creatures on earth - humans - a good deal
to cheer and cherish through our cricketing feats and it would be a great loss for
a vast chunk of humanity, if they were to be robbed of a favorite pastime of
theirs - watching Pakistani cricketers display their exceptional talent.

In order for your favorite species to stay happy and cheerful, Pakistan cricket
needs to be back on track asap, and there is only one way of doing that-send in
another IMRAN KHAN