ISLAMABAD; Pakistan’s most successful skipper and now prime minister, Imran K han , played as a fast baller for Dawood Hercules team in early 70s for Rs 1600 per month. Dawood Hercules team also had other superstars of Pakistani cricket like Zaheer Abbas and many others who later shone in the cricket world.
“Those were early days of Imran Khan as fast baller and he used to play for Dawood Hercules team and his salary ,as I can recall, was Rs 1600 a month” ,a former cricketer of his times told NEWSMAN on the condition of not disclosing his name.
“Today Imran Khan is prime minister of Pakistan and by banning departmental cricket he, in fact ,is destroying cricket in Pakistan”, the aggrieved former cricket said.
No one would have thought a cricketer-turned prime minister can snatch jobs of his fellow cricketers by discontinuing departmental cricket in the country.
Since coming in power in 2018, Imran Khan is continuously discouraging departmental cricket in Pakistan. One can hardly believe Imran Khan as prime minister could reject concerns of his close friends and legends of Pakistan’s cricket like Javed Miandad, Shahid Afridi and many more and continue to discourage departmental cricket in the country.
Miandad and many other close friends of Imran Khan and super stars of Pakistani cricket have been consciously advocating significance of departmental cricket in promotion of the game in Pakistan and urging the Prime minister not to shut this nursery of cricket (departmental cricket) , but Imran Khan, who is known for his rigidity , seems unconvinced.
“Let me tell you discontinuation of departmental cricket will spoil new talent of cricket in Pakistan”, the worried former cricketer argued while forcefully supporting continuation of departmental cricket in Pakistan’,
“Even today I can list many top Pakistani cricketers who got entry in the national team and played for the country due to departmental cricket”, he added,.
This former cricketer is convinced had Pakistan not introduced departmental cricket, it would have definitely lost huge new talent of cricket.
NEWSMAN checked from Google to verify if Imran Khan really played as fast baller in his early days of cricket for Dawood Hercules cricket team ?. The Google online record confirmed the information of the worried ,rather disappointed, ,former cricketer.
Now with his past record of playing departmental cricket , why Imran Khan is strong opponent of this system?. Only Imran Khan can answer this question.
But one thing is for sure that his arguments to oppose departmental cricket make little sense. He should think, at least once seriously, what will be the source of bread and butter of hundreds, may be thousands , of new youths who come from poor families and make the game their source of earning, but they prove themselves the best with huge talent to play for Pakistan. Secondly, he also needs to think does departmental cricket harm to Pakistan or any of its departments?