India’s women wrestlers, protesting in the national Capital against alleged sexual exploitation by Brij Bhusan Sharan Singh, were said to have been cut to the quick by the country’s elite cricketers’ silent but firm refusal to breathe a word in their support. Censured by Indian Olympic Association chief P T Usha for being “indisciplined,” they had had such a colossus as Kapil Dev taking their side, but the titans of these times, say Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli, never breathed a word when the women found themselves up against it, which might have surprised Niraj Chopra and Abhinav Bindra, who have Olympic gold medals in their trophy cabinets.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan fights his own battle in Pakistan, without anyone among his peers, predecessors or juniors bothering to stand up and say, for instance, that the arrest on the court premises was a nasty piece of business. Or, the rough way he is being handled lends a ring of credibility to his frequently expressed complaint that they are trying to do him down, if not in. Equally alarmingly, in a country where politicians are required to shift this way or that as its army wants, Khan is quite convincingly said to have rubbed the cantonment up the wrong way in a spectacular slide from his erstwhile position of power as prime minister of a country he was so clearly proud of and so unbelievably popular in.
To many he is now an inspiration, off the field. Going from the pin-up boy Pakistani girls at cricket grounds sang Kabhi alvida na kehna to, to winning the 1992 World Cup, he ensured for himself a place in the hearts of all Pakistanis regardless of the differences age, sex and status engineered. When, in 1987, Khan announced his retirement, it took General Zia to persuade him to rescind the decision and to lead the team to the West Indies, where the even-steven ending of a three-match Test series was an achievement few teams would have equalled at the time. Not for nothing was he hero-worshipped.
Even after injuries galore, he could at will bowl the spine-chilling bouncer that would have the best of batsmen reeling and though his batting suffered as his exploits with the ball seemed to matter more, he was always capable of the tide-turning knock that made bowlers of all kinds look like pygmies vaingloriously taking on a giant. When leading Pakistan, Khan propelled his team by spotting talent with unerring accuracy and backing it to the hilt, calling for neutral umpires when Pakistani ones were considered short on integrity. Cricket’s loss was subsequently to turn out to be, first, a cancer hospital’s, and then politics’ gain, but as the recent developments show, when state power strikes, you would be either on the mat or on a wicked wicket. But he shows that the lone combatant can indeed fight back, and inspire others, in wrestling or any other sport