Mustafa Kamal has resigned.
Mustafa who?
Oh madam, you know, our cricket guy.
Is he the fellow who bowled that ball to the Indians that lost us the match?
No, no, madam prime minister. Mustafa Kamal is, or was, maybe still is, ICC president.
Is… was? What do you mean?
Well on Wednesday, Mustafa Kamal, inspired to be poetic by the passion of the occasion, said, "From now on I'm not the present ICC president but a former ICC president."
Huh, what does that mean?
Well, madam, I took poetry in college and I feel quite confident of parsing Mustafa Kamal's syntax. I think what our politician-administrator was saying was that he had been insulted into giving up his post of president of the International Cricket Committee, which runs world cricket and organises the World Cup, in the final of which, he, Mustafa Kamal, had been unceremoniously deprived of his statutory prerogative to hand out trophies by that obnoxious power broker, the chairman of ICC.
Oh, it's that man you are talking about. Tee hee hee.
Madam, you know that Bangladesh reached the quarter-final when England didn't.
Don't even remind me of that. Mustafa Kamal explained to me how we lost the quarter-final. He has proof that the umpire had deliberately called the delivery off which that Indian batsman was caught a no ball. And he is the president of ICC… when he says that, then it must be true. That is why I too later told our players and our countrymen that there was nothing to be upset about the loss, that everyone had seen how we were made to lose.
But madam, really, we could have won the match.
Hmmph! With an opening bowler who bowls at 120 kmph? Though on second thoughts, I think that is clever strategy. It's enough to confuse batsmen about whether they are facing pace or spin.
Well, madam, India is playing big brother once again. It thinks it can harass us just because its team has batsmen who can hit sixes off our very best bowlers.
So Mustafa Kamal resigned from ICC?
Yes, on top of the umpires conspiring against his presidentship, ICC did not allow him to present the trophies at the final. Mustafa Kamal says it was a conspiracy hatched by the ICC chairman.
But why by the ICC chairman?
Madam, the ICC chairman is an Indian. Obviously, he did not want another subcontinental VIP on the dais stealing the show at the prize ceremony.
But that's a rotten thing to do.
Yes, that is what Mustafa Kamal said too.
But this whole thing has caused a diplomatic row. Maybe as prime minister I shouldn't have said in such direct words that we were made to lose the match.
Diplomatic row, madam?
Oh, didn't you know? Because of this Mustafa Kamal affair, now the home minister of India has asked his Border Security Force to ensure that smuggling of cows into our country is stopped.
Yes, I read about that in the papers. He wants the beef prices in our country to become completely unaffordable.
Oho, you don't see the politics in that? I know what India's home minister's real aim is and it has got nothing to do with beef prices in our country. Don't you understand? If we don't bring in cattle from Assam and Bengal to slaughter, where do you think the hide for cricket balls will come from? Our economy cannot afford the import of Kookaburras and Dukes. Listen, tell Mustafa Kamal to take back his resignation and invite India to tour Bangladesh. We will allow them to win the series.
Free Run is a fortnightly look at alternate realities joel.rai@bsmail.in
