By Asif Suhail
Expecting a free passes or tickets before any international cricket match is a part of our culture since decades. The VIP’s, the bigwigs, and security agencies swarm every stadium where an international match is being played.
Nobody ever dared to stand up against this culture. I did dare during my brief stay in the PCB. During the third ODI against Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009, I had firmly refused to give entire Patron’s Enclosure, adjacent to the Fazal Mahmood Enclosure, at disposal of the then DCO Lahore. In response the DCO had threatened me over phone to withdraw his force from the Gaddafi Stadium but couldn’t tame me.
I know that it is difficult for any ordinary person to sustain the pressure that comes from friends and bigwigs asking complimentary passes and tickets and Najam Sethi, the incumbent chairman of the PCB, was not exception.
When pressure mounted on his feeble nerves he was forced to tweet before the two eliminators of the PSL discouraging people not to ask for a free pass/ticket. On March 10, Sethi tweeted that people should not ask him for free PSL-2018 passes.
It could have been a daring step by the PCB chairman and he might have received my appreciation but he unfortunately missed the chance. Few days after, Sethi negated his own tweet and sent a special invitation to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to watch the match.
The top Judge of the country, who is just as much a cricket fan as any other Pakistani, felt no hesitation to accept the invitation and watched the second eliminator of the PSL in the Chairman‘s Office.
Like a shrewd journalist Sethi immediately exploited the presence of the Chief Justice and in a photograph tweeted by the PCB on March 21, 2018 (Wednesday), the country’s top judge could be seen enjoying the Karachi Kings vs Peshawar Zalmi match at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
Excellent work of the PCB Media Department! In the picture the Chief Justice can be seen sitting in the company of controversial persons, incumbent chairman whose dubious past is known to everyone, a former chairman of the Board about whom many former Test cricketers allege that he managed soft punishments for the cricketers who appeared before a tainted Justice Qayyum in match-fixing case and the DON of Pakistan cricket who conveniently falls in the lap of every boss of the Board and spoils national domestic cricket with his frequent experiments.
In recent months the Chief Justice has attained a large followings in the country through his visits to hospitals, directing governments to remove garbage from the streets, ensure provision of potable water to the people, taking contempt of court notices against some badmouthing politicians and his firm stand against the big heads to eradicate corruption from the country.
By accepting a special invitation to watch a cricket match the Chief Justice has disappointed his followers who were expecting of him to reject VIP culture and set an example buying a ticket from his own pocket to watch the match. One wonders that how he forgot that the invitation has come from a tainted person whose cases are still pending in courts. Isn’t this Contempt of the People of Pakistan?