Ijaz Butt: setting a bad precedent
Ijaz Butt has been at the receiving end of a lot of criticism from all quarters and rightly so. The Pakistan Cricket Board is an institution that has an inherent need to be transparent and disciplined so that it sets a good example for players, who would then know that no one is above the law. But as they say, the rot starts from the top. After Chairman PCB, his highness, his majesty, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128’s claims earlier this year that he is not answerable to the Parliament and is only answerable to the President Asif Ali Zardari, the Patron-in-Chief of the PCB, it has resulted in setting an oxymoronic precedent for others to follow.
When the PCB chairman is so adamant on staying on as chairman in the face of a plethora of allegations and criticism, it gives a green light to captain Salman Butt to continue and disrespect the parliament and the country, since he is only answerable to the PCB if we delve in the technicalities of it. Going by this principle in the face of damning evidence against the captain and his team players, Salman Butt has chosen to wait for the investigative report to come out into the public. Butt believes that he will not resign. In fact, the captain mentioned how under his captaincy Pakistan won a test against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 and England after many years.
When Mohammad Ilyas, one of the PCB's selectors can indulge in blatant nepotism and go on with as much as threatening the officials to include his son-in-law Imran Farhat and yet get away with it, then Pakistani players get the license to kill. The PCB’s expectations are most likely to fall on deaf ears if the highest standards of moral integrity are expected of these cricketers. In another incident, Ijaz Butt not only passed derogatory remarks against a few senators but according to the senators, the entire parliament came under Butt’s scathing criticism.
According to a news source, former Pakistani captain Aamir Sohail “has publicly suggested to sack every employee of the PCB since Ijaz Butt is taking all the decisions. According to Sohail, it would save a lot of money which is being dispensed as salaries to the gauntlet of the sycophants?”
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755.
The fact that Pakistani players could so easily escape to bars and pubs at night, under the watchful eye of Yawar Saeed is highly unnerving when cricket players are supposedly living under curfew during an ongoing match. If found guilty of being involved in match-fixing, the Patron-in-chief of the PCB must understand that corruption and nepotism is deep rooted in the board, and until and unless measures are taken to ensure that this system is effectively brought to an end, one cannot expect any improvement in Pakistan’s cricket.
What eludes most cricket fans is the fact as to why the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board has to be someone who does not even understand how the system of cricket works. What’s the criterion of selection of a PCB chairman, might the tax paying members of the country know that?
Many senior players have been insulted and pushed to the limits by Ijaz Butt time and again, that resulted in resignations from different positions of the PCB. This includes Aamir Sohail and Abdul Qadir, both of whom effectively resigned just a few months later.
The key to inculcating discipline amongst Pakistani players is no rocket science. If the players effectively know and are aware of the fact that the board has a zero tolerance on corruption and nepotism, such incidents could be avoided in future. As it is however, Ijaz Butt has set the worst precedent for the players to follow.
Tags: