The aura of the individual

Shoaib Akhtar: fixated with himself as, indeed, is the rest of Pakistan © AFP

For Pakistan, the Asia Cup can't come soon enough. For until then cricket will be about little more than Shoaib Akhtar and the defeat to India, as has been the case since that series came to an end. The few TV sports shows and newspapers with extensive sports coverage have pored over Shoaib's ribs and Pakistan's defeat at the expense of much else. Admittedly, the loss to India was significant, but the relentless pursuit of both issues reveals a dangerously skewed thinking towards sport in this country. To this day Pakistan remains fixated with the cult of the individual, which permeates beyond the cricket field, and still finds it difficult to digest defeat gracefully.

Cricket in Pakistan has long nurtured the aura of the individual. Whether it was Imran Khan, Javed Miandad or, more recently, Wasim Akram or Waqar Younis, Pakistan has hankered after, pampered and obsessed on the superstar, the match-winner. This attitude is immune to winning or losing, victory and defeat are never shared; in victory the match-winner is lionised, in defeat the scapegoat is victimised. Today, Shoaib Akhtar fills both roles.

If Pakistan beat New Zealand at Wellington in January it was because of Shoaib, if Pakistan lost to India at Rawalpindi it is his fault. Both blindly overlook the efforts of the team, whether chasing down a tricky target in the first game or batting and fielding amateurishly in the second.

This unhealthy obsession with Shoaib has manifested itself in one local newspaper, which has been carrying an exclusive from him on an almost daily basis. Not much of the reportage has been about his stop-start performances for Durham. Instead, it has provided Shoaib with a public platform to express his own grievances, and to further nurture his persona.

The PCB, meanwhile, despite repeatedly stating that no one is bigger than the team, has proceeded to disprove exactly that since the India tour. In the past, the PCB and Tauqir Zia went out of their way to appease the many demands of Shoaib Akhtar. Those days may be gone, but little has been learnt.

Whatever the intentions of the medical commission, the PCB could do little to dispel public perception that it was an exercise in hunting down a single, individual scapegoat. By publicly disputing medical reports, casting doubts on his appearances for Durham while injured, and inexplicably axing him for the Asia Cup over a disputed injury when the tournament is still over 40 days away, the PCB has only succeeded in making him appear bigger than the team.

Sachin Tendulkar may be India's superstar, but there's more to Team India than just him © AFP

In this context, Team Pakistan, as we are now to call it, remains at best an empty rallying call for team spirit, and at worst, a shame-faced lie. The best teams in international cricket do not promote - or tolerate - the concept of the match-winner. In Australia, there is no match-winner - there is a group of winners. And there is India, where the transition from the individual to the team has been stark. Where once Sachin Tendulkar was India for the people, the board and the media, there are now eleven players who make Team India.

Equally disturbing has been the difficulty in swallowing defeat. At the best of times, national pride is a vague, hazy concept, but does a loss to India today really constitute a deep enough wound to it? Is there a need for a Senate Standing Committee to question Rameez Raja and Shaharyar Khan about reasons behind the loss? And if that isn't enough, must the same process be endured again with a National Assembly Standing Committee?

If anything, the reasons are clear enough, that India were a better side, that they were more committed and benefited from a more professional coaching set-up. What else will the committees want to know? Will they demand of Rameez Raja, as a recent TV show ludicrously did, whether the PCB put on a fireworks display to celebrate Pakistan's loss in the ODI series? Or will they ask him, ridiculously, whether the President told the Pakistan team to lose the series as a gesture of goodwill?

Should these committees for sports and culture not involve themselves with issues where answers are less forthcoming, as in the fall of Pakistani squash or the alarming, but constant, ineptitude of the country's football federation? The World Cup final defeat in 1999 instigated similar inquiries and allegations, but did it take into account that Australia was, in fact, a superior opponent? Admittedly, the spectre of match-fixing still looms large in these parts - but must every defeat then raise cynical eyebrows?

There are more pressing concerns in Pakistan cricket than Shoaib's attitude and the defeat to India. The impending, and far-reaching, structural change in the domestic game; the pressing need to instill professionalism into the coaching set-up of the national team; the continuing friction between regional associations and the PCB; or even the imminent arrival of Greg Chappell on a contract as short as it is lucrative. Nearly two months on and we remain engrossed in the ongoing saga of one man and his rib, and a series loss to a caricature enemy. Bring on the Asia Cup and get over it.