Zulqarnain Haider the person who played key role in last game to make Pakistan win and he was the hero of the moment that day. The same Zulqarnain, I gave him name – Zulu, was missing today and as per his fb status, he is doing all this as a result of life threat he received. Apparently, it is a journey from UAE to UK but from the corner of the book, I am looking at whole story it is not. It is a journey that started from UK and now has reached to the point where the leading character of the story is back in England. No idea where this story is going take him now, if this all is going to be a new turn in his career or his career is over. Time will decide all this, but still there are many questions about what happened this morning.
This morning came up two big updates for Pakistan Cricket and both of them are related to Wicket keepers. Zulqarnain is in UK now and the other one is Kamran Akmal who has been banned by ICC till world cup. Kamran Akmal who have never been good in keeping the wickets but for last year and half he has emerged as a silent bad boy in the team. He has been accused of match fixing and having contacts with bookmakers. However, initially he was given green chit during the scam of match fixing back in England tour. I have said in many previous blog posts of this topic that Kamran Akmal is not as good as he proved, somehow, himself to be whenever he caught in any issue of some serious subject.
The step taken by Zulu is a big one, I am not saying that he was good or bad with his decision. But I must say whatever he did is been done out of fear and pressure. The information I got during the investigation I did at my end I have to know that all the matches of the series are fixed and in every game Pakistan will lose but will lose after a thrilling and close competition. Zulqarnain out of no-where made Pakistan won in last game, and according to his facebook status he has been given threat of life and he is in this situation because he spoiled the party of many bookmakers who arranged everything to make sure the defeat of Pakistani team.
If bookmakers can put 280 million amounts on the line can also kill or threat someone who can cause them huge loss no matter the player is a big name or not. There is a theory that makes me to think Kamran Akmal as the person who did all this or played an important role. As compared to Kamran, Zulu is better wicket keeper however; he is not good with the bat. Nevertheless still, he played an innings like a wall and defended team to face follow on in a test match against and in England. Even after playing that test, he never got his test cap. Akmal brothers have somehow become a strong name and somehow decision maker in such fields. Zulu never got his test cap even after laying one just because he was replacing one of the big name and favorite child of all the problem lovers.
Game is being played in UAE but there is no fixing it is a fact that cannot be ignored at all. To me Zulu’s reaching UK is not the end of this story I can smell some big scandal coming out of all this. Zulu made this decision at the time when he was about to get a proper and permanent place in Pakistani team as the result of the ban on Kamran Akmal.
I am confused about one thing that who is responsible for all this. Can we blame the senior players, bookmakers, or PCB, or Zulu himself? At the end of the day he is a cricketer not a solders who can swallow such threats easily and I cannot find reaching London from Dubai out of no prior preparation. Whatever is the reason of all this time will clear the picture. But one cannot, after these incidents, ignore the presence of fixing games. I also find PCB liable for what happened, management must have retain his passport and provided better security to him and his family to give him a sense of being secured. Again, let the time decide and show us the part that will be seen after the climax of the story is over. However, I totally dis-agree with the theory that says Zulu taken this step out of personal issues, it is near to impossible to take such step out of personal issues and interests at the time when this all decagons was being made by Zulu. There were some twists in the story in the wider end that might have lead to the permanent place of Zulu in the team. Such things will keep coming to us in this way unless PCB brings some actual change in its policy rather then giving lectures to the players.
however after this post i might be given the name of conspiracy theorist or may be not, but Zulqarnain Haider has become the first ever wicket keeper in the history to become a trending topic on twitter.
You are right. Its too early to say anything about Haider’s career or the real story behind it but this whole dilemma is going to put PCB into trouble. There was lot of pressure put up on PCB by the ICC on discipline issues. And after all those warnings we launched up into another mess of a scene. God Help Pakistan Cricket !
Brilliant post! I loved your side of the story and agree with you!