Nearly 11 years ago, Shoaib Akhtar went to Mumbai to shoot a TV commercial. As he often did, he organised a trip to the children’s cancer ward of a hospital in the city.
The longer his career went on, the more these kinds of trips became important to Akhtar. A trip to an orphanage here, some charity work there. He did it genuinely, but it helped that he was seen doing a good deed, to offset all the bad publicity he could generate for himself.
Nothing about him was especially bad. He was just a rich, talented and young sportsman enjoying his life, mostly to the detriment of nobody else.
But that trip in April 2004 is difficult to forget because it revealed a central truth about Akhtar.
“It is a lifetime opportunity for these kids that I am here with them,” Akhtar, who reportedly was visibly moved by the experience, was widely quoted as saying at the time. “They will never get a chance to play with me or see me again, but I am glad I came here and spent some time with them.”
Even now, so many years on, I am not sure whether to be offended by the overwhelming self-obsession of those sentiments or to just laugh at the lack of awareness.
I was reminded of this little interaction by another exchange recently, during the Big Bash League in Australia. It was not on the field, but up in the commentators’ box.
There was perched former Australia captain Ricky Ponting, now a TV commentator, as inquisitor, with Kevin Pietersen, who plays for Melbourne Stars in the competition, the inquisitee.
It was 20 minutes of good, but also cringeworthy, TV, which maybe is no coincidence. It was unexpected, coming during a Twenty20 game in which the demand to call the action can be unrelenting. In the process, they did not miss much.
Pietersen provided all the cringe, much in the way Akhtar often did, in that ‘I-cannot-believe-he-just-said-that‘ way in which they seem to be so expert. Everything about the Big Bash was so brilliant – except when it was merely excellent – that Pietersen sounded like a car salesman, but a lazy one who long ago dropped the pretence of genuineness.
But the most striking resemblances with Akhtar were in that bloated sense of the self. It is hardly news that Pietersen is self-obsessed. It was an obvious conclusion once he tried to earnestly argue it was difficult being him.
He ignored one question with this piece of rhetoric: “Did I achieve some amazing things and am I very proud of my accomplishments, and of the team’s accomplishments? Yes, I am.”
Or later, when he said, “I don’t know why I’m not playing for England, I haven’t got a clue.” If he does not know even now, after all that has been said and done, there is even more to his myopia than is apparent at first.
It may not be right that he is not playing for England.
As with Akhtar, any board should try to do as much as it can to ensure their finest talents play as much as they can, no matter how difficult they may be.
But that England thought he did not fit into their vision, their side is pretty obvious. It may be unfair, it may be petty, but there it is.
England, or at least this management, do not really like him, and if there is not that realisation in him, even now, then is that not partly the problem?
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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