By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

THE cricket metaphor in political comment is by now so over-stretched as to have become even more applicable to the ruling party. Heaven and Pemra forbid that one has match-fixing; ball-tampering; tergiversating umpires or a well-prepared pitch in mind. Doctoring is for Shaukat Khanum and spectators realise home-ground is home-ground and competitors are opponents if not encroachers: Wipe ‘em out! However, it does happen that a match becomes a foregone conclusion and spectator interest sinks.

It is humbling to think our government of the day derives its political mystique from an endearing playboy captain who won the cricket World Cup for Pakistan about thirty years ago. Is it reassuring or alarming that it took that long for the cup of national gratitude to overflow? Or can it indicate that once the cup over-floweth there is demand for another vessel? After all there are many sports: We were once Olympians at hockey, and had as good as a dynastic monopoly on squash. Admittedly, those champions were not Oxbridge or Ivy league, or even, come to think of it, madressa alumni. Still, there is consolation for advocates of non-cricketing political gaming that the PML(N) does have hockey linkages: think Gulu Butt and Supreme Court compounds. And, for good measure, it has indigenous free-style wrestling champions in the family.  For that other out-fielded grassroots mainstream party, the PPP; the only gaming metaphor that comes to mind is depressingly cerebral: Chess. How to read the fact that ZAB didn’t need sporting skills to make it to Oxford and political distinction, and for his heirs Benazir and Bilawal, Oxbridge was as good as a birthright. Politics it would appear is not the only thing that is dynastic: brain and brawn are too. Together (though not virtually) they make an unbeatable combination. But then they are seldom long enough on the same page.