Is Now Cricket to Replace an Ideology?

Cricket, a game actually the memento of the British Imperialism, played mostly in the colonial lands that have been, for a long time, ruled by the Britons. Generally it is thought to be a princely game, very costly and, in spite of getting reduced from three days test matches to one day matches and now to ‘ twenty-twenty’, still requires a lot of time of the players and also of the spectators. America, Israel, France, Germany, Russia and many of the European countries have football as a popular game. Gentiles (Non-Jews) as stated in the “Protocols of the Elders of the Zion’ (commonly known as ‘Jews Protocols’) were planned to make madly immersed in one or the other game to throw them away from any serious activity.

Game is just a game and there is no harm in it as a game. If we have the talent in this field and interest perpetuates let it go ahead. Cricket, as has been mentioned above, started by the imperialist community in our lands, and after the creation of Pakistan had been played here, like hockey, football and volleyball, as a common game. Though hockey was accepted as our national game, yet cricket remained in vogue and it produced some very famous players. Its ‘junoon’ and unhinging interest is a matter of only 80s.

General Zia-ul-Haq, now a fashion of many of the journalists and intellectuals to brand him a ‘military dictator’ did two immensely distinctive things, if good, he deserves the credit for them and if bad, he is to be blamed. The concept of ‘Pakistan Day’ had shrunk to only memorizing the Pakistan Resolution, passed on 23 March 1940. The day of foundation of Pakistan, 14 August, was almost forgotten. And we have to admit that it was the same infamous military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq to whom, goes the credit of rediscovery of the lost momentum of 14 August, now every year celebrated fervently.

Before him cricket was played in stadiums and in the grounds of colleges and universities but making it a matter of every street and cricket bat and ball an elegant toy of every child is since Zia-ul- Haq made it a so weighty thing. It was he who first used cricket diplomacy and while India had deployed its forces on our borders and the situation was extremely tense, Zia-ul-Haq, without any invitation reached Ajmer to watch cricket match there and for Rajiv Gandhi, then prime minister of India, there remained no way to evade having a short meeting with Zia-ul-Haq. The second thing done by that military ruler is making cricket so popular thing that now the entire nation seems to having the fits of frenzy and flies in the passion of cricket.

During the very recent event of World Cup 2011, as the semi final match between Pakistan and India was approaching near the temperature of ‘cricket fever’ went extraordinarily high. Media were in competition to make people of both sides much more intemperate. Even when some famous religious institutions and Masajid in Pakistan, were holding special sessions for invocations for winning of Pakistani team, the same was happening in many famous religious schools in India in favour of the Indian team. Pakistanis were praying ‘Nawafil’ in Data Darbar Lahore and the Indian Muslims were invoking blessings in Ajmer Sharif and at the shrine of Khawaja Nizamuddin Awliya in Delhi. It was a clash of wishes of two nationalities and Allah, SWT, and the saints were unnecessarily involved in this clash. In India and Pakistan, the game made the Muslims come under the sway of nationalism and forget they were the parts of Muslim Ummah.

The matter went to such an extent that some of our TV anchors started preaching that nothing else but the cricket is only main factor to bring unity and harmony in Pakistani nation. They forget that cricket matches are occasional thing and its fever is over when matches are over. Like fashions the craze for the games also turns from this to that side. Today cricket is favourite and tomorrow some other game is more likely to replace cricket to get popularity. Reliance on games for national unity and harmony is an immature thinking.

National integrity and stability depends on radiance of knowledge and luminosity of our intellectuality shooting up from our colleges and universities, courage of our military forces, wisdom of our political leadership, hard work of our farmers and labours busy in agricultural farms and fields and industrial hubs. And mostly how much we are adherent to ideology of Pakistan. Would that we had a leadership of a caliber able to make the ideology of Pakistan the heartbeat of every Pakistani! Ultimately our integrity and stability is in arousing a latent sense of our ideology.