CITY NOTES
Shan Masood is a reasonable player, but surely he’s not in the class of Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar went there in1992, bringing an end to it’s prejudice against players not born in Yorkshire.
It’s not always been so. Lord Hawke, the 19th century Yorkshire captain who made it Yorkshire, and with eight Championships still remains the captain with the most County Championships, was born in Lincolnshire, of all places, and only played for Yorkshire because of a residential qualification. It was a far cry from the time when a Yorkshire captain insisted on his wife being rushed to Yorkshire when she was about to give birth, because if it was a boy, the father wanted him qualified to play for Yorkshire.
One wonders if Shan is some sort of token. I mean, you’ve got lads of Pakistani origin with impeccable Yorkshire birth qualifications, from Bradford, who’ve played for Yorkshire, and who have complained how they’ve experienced racism in the dressing-room, including from Mark Vaughan, who was also England captain at the time.
And Shan has also got the captain’s job after a stint as an ordinary overseas player. I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but Shan doesn’t captain his country. That’s quite apart from Lord Hawke spinning in his grave, of course.
I wonder if Shan is some sort of revenge for Lord Harris. Lord Harris was another 19th/20th century cricketer, and he skippered Kent for many years. He was also Governor of Bombay in later life, and got decidedly bad reviews, being called quite simply the worst governor ever sent out to India. Now if Shan can destroy Yorkshire …
Yorkshire is trying to recoup, and has signed an agreement of sorts with the Lahore Qalandars. That’s why theory had Haris Rauf as their overseas player. Of course, getting over the racism charge will involve more than just a Pakistani captain, especially one who doesn’t even captain his domesticT20 team (Multan Sultans, which he led until he was sacked, because Rizwan joined the side.) . It will take at least 10 to 15 years before some Bradford kid, born to Pakistani parents, joins Yorkshire, plays for a decade, and then becomes captain.
Ranjitsinhji created the myth of the magical Indian batsman, but it should reassure Yorkshire fans of the old school that Pakistan produced Mudassar Nazar, who broke the record for the slowest century in Test cricket back in 1977-8. The tradition of dour openers, who refuse to score, and and perfectly happy to let the overs go by, was a peculiarly Yorkshire thing, exemplified by Sir Len Hutton before and after the Second World War, and then Geoff Boycott, in the 1960s through 1980s. Shan doesn’t have that particular quality. But it is to be presumed that the Yorkshire Committee knows what it’s about.
Cricket is not as dangerous as football, it seems, with a stampede in an Indonesian football stadium in Indonesia, Persebaya Surabaya lost 3-2 to Arema Football Club in a league match, and its supporters invaded the pitch. Then there was a stampede and 123 people were killed. It didn’t help that the police used teargas. You don’t have stadium stampedes in cricket, do you?
We should hope that there are no such disasters in cricket. Two major factors seem to have been behind the disaster. First, the stadium was overcrowded, with 42,000 tickets sold against a capacity of 38,000. Second, everyone tried to get out at the same time, to avoid the teargas. It’s perhaps lucky that we didn’t need any audio recording of the stampede.
Imran has said that the last leaks (released on Friday) were doctored. But then there’s confirmation from Bashir Memon, the former DG FIA, who admits having been in PM’s Principal Secretary Azam Khan’s bathroom. The hacker had threatened to leak clips involving him and a john. Memon admitted that there was an episode involving the PM, Azam Khan, him and a john.
Whatever happened, one thing is sure. There’s been a lot of worry expressed about foreign visitors and their willingness to speak freely. But what about the PM’s closest confidants, and perhaps the PM himself?
Everybody with a smartphone has got to worry about being hacked, but now it is clear that not even face-to-face conversations are safe. And all this has been achieved without putting a DG FIA in every john.
