Pakistan’s cricket tour of England – It’s time to head home!
Pakistan cricket team would be relieved after playing the last one-day international with England despite losing it, simply because they finally get to go home. Just the thought of leaving England would have been a feeling of respite for the entire squad,
including managers, coaches, the PCB (http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 Cricket Board), along with the players.
The dreaded tour is over for the visitors– they have returned to their home at last, after this rather long and painful tour – marred with controversies, scandals, ball tampering allegations, spot-fixing, match-fixing, and mockery and shame.
The British media was brutal throughout and the hosts did not do a good job in making the team feel welcomed in any way. There were some harsh statements thrown from the England side to the Pakistan side, and instant rebuttals from the Pakistan side to the
England side. The tension between the players was evident on and off the field. The players were seen exchanging harsh words during matches, for instance, Umar Akmal, Jonathon Trott, Stuart Broad and even the cool-tempered Umar Gul.
Off the field things weren’t any better either. Jonathan Trott and Wahab Riaz were reported to be at each other’s throats in the net practices. It has been said that Trott had called Wahab Riaz a “match-fixer” and Riaz reacted to his comments.
The Pakistan Cricket Board and its chairman were quick to join the party. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 accused English players of fixing the third one-day international at the Oval, claiming that ‘the England team had taken a lot of money to lose the match’ according to the
bookies. The English Cricket Board (ECB) reacted angrily to these accusations by giving PCB a legal notice for an official apology and also imposed a penalty worth of significant amount of money. Andrew Strauss was also perturbed and quite surprised at Ijaz’s
statement and said that how could he question the integrity of the English players without any proof or evidence?
Graeme Swann later mentioned that he did not want to continue playing matches with Pakistan after Ijaz Butt’s comment. According to him he was “dead on playing” because as it is Pakistani players had faced spot-fixing allegations and now they are making
such statements, making it extremely difficult for England continue playing a normal game of cricket with Pakistan.
"Mr Butt's comments were as offensive as they could possibly be. They went against everything I stand for as a professional sportsman,” said Swann in an exclusive interview to the British tabloid newspaper “The Sun”.
Despite such statements and notices by the English players and the board, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt has stood firmly on his ground and has stuck to his word, saying that he will not apologize for what he had said because this is exactly
what was told to him by the bookies, though he did maintain that it wasn’t him who said that English players fixed the match, but rather the bookies said it and he was just quoting them.
One would think that there is nothing good that came out of this tour for Pakistan, the tour tainted the Pakistani cricketers, they were ill-treated by the hosts and the English players, and even the umpires made many poor decisions which went in favour
of England. A former English player Nasser Husain, who is currently a commentator for Sky Sports openly said during his commentary that many decisions in this tour have gone in the favour of England, especially the crucial wicket of Kamran Akmal in the last
one-day match, which literally changed the result of the match.
But there is definitely one thing that Pakistan learned in this tour – they learned to be fighters. In the last three matches you could see the enthusiasm in every team member of the side, their thirst for victory was ever so pronounced. It was not all about
winning a match; they were fighting for their integrity, their national honour and for their country. It was a side of Pakistan that has never been seen before – it was almost like a war, but only on a cricket ground – not with swords but with bat and ball.
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