Gaffe at T20

This is the image that would be etched in our mids for quite some time. Oh! what a game of cricket it was - more so because India won eventually. But what sticks out as a sore thumb and has refused to recede from the confines of my mind is the following quote of Shoaib Malik at the presentation ceremony:

"First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world. I am sorry we didn't win but promise we did give our 100%..." (sic)

It still eludes me as to what makes him think that every Muslim in this world would be cheering for Pakistan and not for their home country. All of us know that Pakistan is a declared Islamic state but Shoaib has conveniently assumed that all Islamists are Pakistanis. This is so naive a comment that I still find it hard to believe that it has come from the captain of an international cricket team. Agreed that Shoaib Malik was fearful of the fact that he might suffer the same fate as Bob Woolmer but this is not the way to go around saving your life. Imagine the kind of impact his comments would have had on the many Muslim households (particularly one Pathan household which had two of their Muslim sons playing together for India for the first time) in India who were cheering for their home country. As Mukul Kesavan rightly writes:

It is a world where Muslims, Hindus and a Sikh currently play (the game of cricket) for England, where Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and a Hindu play for Sri Lanka, where Hashim Amla turns out for South Africa, where a Patel plays for New Zealand, where Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Hindus play (and have always played) for India. Why would Shoaib think, then, that the Muslims of the world were collectively rooting for the Pakistan team or that they felt let down by its defeat? Did he stop to think of how Danish Kaneria, his Hindu team-mate, might feel hearing his Test skipper all but declare that the Pakistan team is a Muslim team that plays for the Muslims of the world? It is one thing to be publicly religious—Shahid Afridi thanked Allah and Matt Hayden and Shaun Pollock are proud, believing Christians—quite another to declare that your country's cricket eleven bats for international Islam.

If Shoaib took in nothing else about the final, he must have noticed that the bowler who took his wicket was called Irfan Khan Pathan, that the Indian team's most visible cheerleader, the guy who was hugging Indian players in turn at the end of the game, was one Shah Rukh Khan. I feel a residual distaste in even mentioning their names because both Shah Rukh and Irfan are admired in India for what they've achieved, not who they are... (link)

It's time to hire a PR agency, Mr. Malik !!