Saj Sadiq's impassionate plea to all about the right of fans to express their opinions and question and criticize players if they falter...

Saj Sadiq (20th Augist, 2011)

 

If you sat 100 Pakistani fans down in a room and asked them to express their opinions and thoughts on ANY Pakistani cricketer, you can bet your bottom dollar that no cricketer would get the unanimous thumbs up.

Even Imran Khan, the Lion of Lahore and legendary all rounder who is much admired and appreciated by Pakistani fans the world over would not get a unanimous vote of confidence. I'm sure there would be fans amongst the 100 that would have something negative to say about Imran, his tactics or even about his cricketing abilities and skills, perhaps even criticism about his non cricketing activities or his leadership of the Pakistan cricket team.

Javed Miandad, the streetfighter from Karachi is another cricketer who generates a wide range of opinions and thoughts. Like Imran, Javed has a large number of fans as well as detractors.....such is life, you cannot please everyone.

Turning our attention to modern day Pakistani cricketers, many of them generate a whole variety of opinions from fans and media. Perhaps it is due to the fact that Pakistan has not been able to produce too many truly world class cricketers in recent times that opinions are so divided. Also the team has not performed too well on the field in recent times and there have been a number of controversies involving Pakistani cricketers resulting in a lot of antagonsim towards them. From spot fixing, to in fighting, as well as ball biting, pitch scuffing, the Pakistani cricketers have not covered themselves in glory.

The variety of opinions and thoughts though are what makes forums like PakPassion interesting and a joy to read. You will see die hard fans to fans who detest the selection of some cricketers. You will see a complete array of opinions. The bottom line is that if everyone agreed with everyone else, there would be no debate, no differences of opinion and no vibrant discussions. Opinions are the lifeblood of PakPassion as well as the media.

The opinions on PakPassion are read by many. This ranges from fans, to administrators, journalists, ex players, current Pakistan players, PCB officials, selectors as well as first class players. Some choose to voice their opinions in anonymous usernames and many others prefer to just read. Make no mistake we have a very wide audience on PakPassion.

Many cricketers have said to me that they come to PakPassion to see what the latest news on Pakistan cricket is, to read fan's opinions on themselves and to gauge the criticism and praise from members of PakPassion. Some players have even said to me that they have used the criticism from members of PakPassion to motivate themselves to improve their game, which is commendable.

So, youngster or long serving veteran, they all come to PakPassion to read the views on here and to see what is being written by the members of PakPassion.

Very rarely do we get negative feedback from the players regarding what has been written. In fact I can only remember 2 instances in the many years I have been associated with PakPassion that I have looked at a post after being alerted to something and asked one of the Moderators to remove the post. They were posts that had unfortunately not been picked up by the Moderators. One of the posts was reported to me by the wife of a player and the other post was reported to me by the brother of an ex player ; both were removed immediately with an apology issued to the cricketer and the individual who reported the post to me.

As well as the posters being able to voice an opinion, PakPassion as a website is fully responsible for the articles and interviews that we publish. The majority are interviews and articles that are extremely positive and really do portray the interviewee and Pakistan cricket in a positive light. Whilst some media sources look to portray negativity at every opportunity, we prefer to portray Pakistan cricket in a positive light and focus on the optimistic side of things.

However from time to time, we have to show that not everything is rosy in the garden of Pakistan cricket. We reported that there were issues during the World Cup between the players, whilst some tried to ignore this and try to paint PakPassion as trying to play down the achievements of the Pakistan team, the fact is that reports after the World Cup vindicated what we reported.

PakPassion also reported that during the World Cup, there had been some problems between some players and the team management due particularly to misunderstandings caused by one particular player. We never named that player, even though we were fully aware of his identity. Again though months afterwards the player was named by Pakistan media and our reports were once again vindicated.

Sometimes the ugly side of the game has to be reported upon to make our members aware of what is going on, as many only see what they are shown on television and don't see the full picture and what is going on behind the scenes.

Now of course it's not always easy to report on negative issues. Recently I wrote an article about the hardships faced by some domestic cricketers, it wasn't easy to write it, but I felt I had a duty to make people aware of this issue.

Sometimes individuals involved in cricket don't want us to, or indeed like us to write certain things. Whatever their reasons are for this, well only they know that answer and I don't wish to go into their agendas, but as I said previously, I feel it is our duty as a reliable source in the world of Pakistani cricket media to present facts and the full story to our readers and members.

As long as there is nothing that can land us in trouble legally and there is nothing that is targeting players’ families or indeed extremely derogatory remarks against the players, then fans and media are entitled to voice their opinions. We at PakPassion take great pride in having a team of excellent and hard working moderators and administrators who are fully aware of moderating rules and what is allowed and what isn't.

As professional sportsmen, one would fully expect cricketers to be able to handle some criticism from fans and media. It should not just be a case of taking the plaudits and then not being able to accept any criticism from fans or media alike. That is simply not acceptable and a rather blinkered view. Great sportsmen take the highs and lows in their stride, they accept praise and they accept criticism in equal measures.

The fact is that the media and fans have a right to express their opinions and as the saying goes, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."