THE Pakistan Cricket Board should have learnt from the International Cricket Council’s mistake. There were no lessons heeded, however, and the backlash has been severe. Regardless of the political scenario, one cannot ignore former prime minister Imran Khan’s contribution to Pakistan cricket. Arguably Pakistan’s greatest cricketer, he is the country’s first and, so far, the only ODI World Cup-winning captain. Not only did he make Pakistan a force to be reckoned with in the game, he also led the crusade for introducing neutral umpires to it. But it seems that the PCB has quite conveniently forgotten about Mr Khan’s domination of the game in its video commemorating Pakistan’s Independence Day. It shared clips of Pakistan’s famous World Cup triumph of 1992 but not one of the influential captain, who infused the ‘cornered tigers’ mentality into his charges. Imran Khan’s team talks have been the stuff of legend and the PCB’s omission was rightly slammed. Fast-bowling great Wasim Akram, a vital part of the 1992 squad, asked the PCB to apologise and delete the video.

The PCB hasn’t done so, its gaffe coming only a few weeks after the ICC omitted Pakistan’s current superstar Babar Azam from its promotional video for the upcoming World Cup. That has been blamed on India’s heavy influence over cricket’s global governing body. As far as the PCB is concerned, its move shows it bent to the agenda of the PDM government that replaced the PTI dispensation. Appointments of the PCB chairman come with the blessings of the government. However, the PCB should have done better. Imran Khan remains Pakistan’s most celebrated cricketer, recognised the world over. It should realise that in removing the legendary player from the video, it has hurt the sentiments of a huge segment of this country’s cricket-crazy population. Not only should it take down the video from its social media accounts, it should also apologise to cricket fans.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2023