I was talking to Ali, my 11-year old nephew born and raised in Australia, the other night. Ali is a hardcore cricket fan and he also plays cricket for his school team. I asked him if he wants to play for Australian team once he grows up. “No, I want to play for Pakistan” was his response. Born and raised in Sydney, but wants to play for Pakistan! Talk about the confusion that desi parents end up injecting their kids with in western countries! Anyway, that is not the topic of my thread.
As our conversation carried on, I ended up asking him about his favorite player. “Shahid Afridi, I am his biggest fan. I loved the way he belted aussies last year” he promptly replied. I felt so proud without realizing what followed next. “Uncle, why is he being punished” was my nephew’s next question. Honestly, I was not ready for this question. I really did not know how to defend our great Afridi Bhai Jan. “He was walking on the pitch” was my best response. “But so do many other players. They don’t get banned just by walking on the pitch” he insisted. “Was he scuffing the pitch?” He asked me. “Nooo” with a long pause was my reply. “Well every one at my club says that he was scuffing the pitch. Why was he doing that?” he kept on irritating and embarrassing me. But I could also tell that he was clearly disappointed with his favorite player and role model. And as it happens so often, I changed the topic!
I guess I was expecting my 11-year nephew to be as naïve as I used to be a generation ago. But what I also realized is that with so much media involvement in today’s cricket, cricketers need to be really careful. Young kids follow them with great passion all over the world and their erroneous and irresponsible behavior is certainly not good for the game. Anyway, there is nothing new in what I am saying and we all keep reading such statements but only today I realized their weightage after facing an embarrassing situation personally.