Ignoring Pakistanis a crying shame

Dubai: The decision by the franchise owners in the Indian Premier League (IPL) to ignore the services of Pakistani cricketers illustrates the paucity of morals and principles that the tournament stands for.

If potential and performance were the criterion then the mind gets even more muddled at the thought of their exclusion.

Surely, with the current batch of Twenty 20 playing Pakistani cricketers — who are the reigning world champions — there would have been a more than adequate return on investment for some teams?

The only logical conclusion can be that there were a certain set of instructions from ‘Big Brother' and the owners went about making ‘percentage' purchases when proven talent and star power were staring them in the face.

To ignore a star player like Shahid Afridi, who could stroll into any Twenty 20 team in the world, is ludicrous, and to bypass bowlers like Umar Gul, Imran Nazir, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan only goes to show that snubbing each of the 11 Pakistani cricketers, who figured in the final list of 66, is more than just a coincidence.

Afridi, for instance, had been clubbed into the top three bracket of players along with Brad Haddin and Graeme Swann at a value of $250,000.

There is also the humanitarian angle to this scenario: Pakistani cricketers need the support of the global cricketing fraternity in order to ply their trade professionally. Too many tours to Pakistan have been cancelled and the thought of playing countries at neutral venues across the world really does not galvanise a cricketer's morale. These players are not asking for charity, just the opportunity to make an honest living by being chosen on merit to play cricket. What could be so terribly wrong about that?

Yesterday's auction presented the IPL with a tailor-made opportunity to earn brownie points and to show the world that cricket does not suffer from a disconnect between countries. The spirit of the game should have prevailed but politics reared its ugly face instead.

The rebuke handed out to the Pakistan cricketers will eventually be put down to the fact that the relevant paperwork needed to pave the way for their entry into India could not be prepared in time — a typical diplomatic tactic which almost, always works. How can one argue against such reasoning? But conversely, why are the organisers obsessing about the wrong issues?

Allowing the Pakistani cricketers to play in India at a time when both countries are seeking out ways to mend fences would have been a win-win situation for both. But by choosing to look the other way, the IPL and its various ‘connections' have shown a lack of Twenty 20 vision.