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Where in the world is Zulqarnain Haider?
- Thread starter Craig
- Start date
Perhaps he was approached on Thursday, didn't do in the 4th ODI what he was told (since he scored the winning runs) and then things got really serious?
By bringing international spotlight, he's given himself and his family the best chance at safety. If he had shown up in Pakistan, middle of night, and gotten bumped off before he reached home - what use would trying to be next his family have been? Unlikely that he'll be able to out gun whoever it is that is threatening him. You can't apply the "in our culture when some other family threatens my family, this is what I need to do" guideline here. The mafia that he's up against is not an integral part of your culture, I don't think.
Faisal1985
International Vice-Captain
True enough..but what Rizvi means to say is that most men from Pak wouldn't just runaway from their wife and kids if someone directly threatened to kill them. In fact there is a greater chance that if you have a beloved family with kids and a wife you would put your life at risk to save them, unless you want to get rid of them anyways.
I understand that he gave his family the best safety by doing what he did but i don't see a lot of logic or natural reaction in doing that.....
He was not going to be playing for Pak in that ODI as his batting is not up to the mark...even though he won that game for us, there was every chance he was going to be replace with Kamran once things settled down around the fixing issues and Kamran's fitness.
I am just speculating here, i could be totally wrong...but i just have a different feeling about this guy.
He said he gave some letters to icc and the icc has said that they didn't receive anything from him..another dent in his credibility.
Faisal1985
International Vice-Captain
TBH i have no idea but its possible that he just wanted to get attention...Could be just that he is correct and saying the truth...i am just saying it seems a bit fishy now for what he has done and the way he has done it.
four_or_six
Cricketer Of The Year
Say it is fishy (eg. he had not been approached and has some ulterior motive for coming to the UK, say) it is still possible that he may have match-fixing information of some description. It will be really interesting to see how things play out.
smash84
The Tiger King
PCB and it's ****ty advisors. This Taffazul Rizvi guy sounds like an idiot. No wonder he is the PCB's legal advisor. Looks like he too thinks from his ***. Everybody knows how pathetic the security situation in Pakistan is. When the security forces can't save Benazir Bhutto, an ex-PM, I doubt they would do anything to save Zulqi and his family. If this is not a hoax he probably did the right thing. I don't have any confidence in our security forces. If his wife and kids were under threat he is no Rambo that he would be able to save them single handedly. The best strategy would be to move out to a safe country. Do not return yourself and ask your family to join you in that country.
And why in the world was he not being picked to play for the 5th ODI? He seems to be much better than the Khatmals sucking the blood of the Pakistan cricket team. And he had just notched up a match winning performance. If that is not good enough to cement his place in the national team instead of Kamran good for nothing Khatmal then what's the point of playing for the national team?
Faisal1985
International Vice-Captain
made my day.
Faisal1985
International Vice-Captain
smash84
The Tiger King
Imran is the man.
I so agree with him. Man we have only ourselves to blame. I so wish that we had a presidential system and Imran was the president of Pakistan.
I read recently that he was able to collect Rs 2.5 billion in 2 weeks for the flood victims. The guy definitely has a lot of credibility.
smash84
The Tiger King
On the topic of Imran. I thought I might share with you guys
FT.com / Pursuits - Cricket with the FT: Imran Khan
Imran bowling at the age of 57.
Faisal1985
International Vice-Captain
What a man ...what a read...true legend!On the topic of Imran. I thought I might share with you guys
FT.com / Pursuits - Cricket with the FT: Imran Khan
Imran bowling at the age of 57.
smash84
The Tiger King
True that. The guy still has so much charisma. Imran by the standards of a 57 year old still looks very good.
I hear he still works very hard on his fitness levels. I hope he becomes the prime minister someday. He seems to be the only one who genuinely cares for Pakistan.
Xuhaib
International Coach
I hope Mr Haider have some incriminating evidence on him, many Pak players get these hoax threats all the time, I know a couple of guys who once made these hoax threats to Afridi and Sami just for the lulz yeah I know it sounds weird, there is every bit of possibility this was just the case and Haider being new to the side just panicked and took off without taking the team management in to confidence.
slowfinger
International Debutant
Haider isn't the one to rashly think like that... He wouldn't....
angad
U19 12th Man
Weird article 
Telegraph: Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider will give name of coach to anti-corruption unit
Zulqarnain Haider, Pakistan's wicketkeeper, will give the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit useful evidence when they interview him again this week, following his flight from Dubai last week.
By Scyld Berry 11:47PM GMT 13 Nov 2010
Haider, who fled to London last Monday, following death threats when he refused to fix two matches against South Africa, will name the coach who he claims forced him to stand down from the captaincy of Lahore Eagles for their 50-over match against National Bank of Pakistan on March 28 2009, which ended in one of the most astonishing results ever recorded.
Lahore Eagles scored 122 from 40.3 overs. NBP, who had to win convincingly to improve their net run-rate to qualify for the semi-finals of the Royal Bank of Scotland Cup, replied with 123 for no wicket off 6.1 overs. Salman Butt, the suspended Pakistan captain, scored an unbeaten 92 off 25 balls. Kamran Akmal was the NBP captain, and Wahab Riaz and Mohammed Amir were also in the winning team.
Haider recalled the incident in his uncertain English: “One night before – I was captain for my team – they gave the captaincy to another player and said 'you are not able to do captaincy’.”
And if Haider had remained captain, no doubt he would not have kept bowling Usman Sarwar, who had never played for Lahore before or since — who conceded 78 runs from three overs, mainly to Butt.
Who exactly told Haider to step down? “The coach said to me, if you do not rest, you will not be playing next year for Lahore.” The name of the coach, Haider yesterday told The Sunday Telegraph, is Sajad Akbar.
This new evidence will pile the pressure on the Pakistan Cricket Board after they found no evidence of foul play when they first investigated this match. Pakistan, having been informally threatened by the International Cricket Council with being banned from the next World Cup if they do not put their house in order, have begun to act, banning the leg-spinner Danish Kaneria from the current Test series against South Africa. Kaneria was arrested by Essex police last season and questioned about “match irregularities”.
He was cleared of any offence in September. A well-placed ICC source said yesterday: “There is a strong ICC determination that any player who has been implicated should not be permitted to play in international or domestic cricket.”
Last week in Dubai was the only time, Haider said, he had been offered money for match-fixing. “I go home and spend time with family, I don’t want to meet bad people. I pray but praying is not everything. We need peace in all the world. I am against terrorism.” Even on a telephone line to Australia, his earnestness and sincerity were almost palpable.
Haider is one of less than a handful of Shi’a Muslims out of Pakistan’s 202 Test cricketers to date, even though Shi’as make up at least one-quarter of the country’s population. Normally, a cricketer’s religion should be a private matter. In this case, the values of Shi’asm may well be relevant, for it focuses on self-sacrifice and martyrdom for a noble cause, and followers are usually the have-nots of this material world.
Haider applied to play the Wisden City Cup in 2009. He turned up for trials at Victoria Park in London in the hope of playing for the London East team. He was not selected, as the competition is for UK residents of inner cities, but it indicated how keen he was for a game.
He kept in touch. In October 2009 Haider emailed to say he had made “54 not out in 1st game agaist (sic) Lahore v ztbl on last wicket with saeed ajmal partnership around 90 runs save ztbl
in 1st ing.” Zarai TBL is another company running a team in Pakistan cricket.
In November 2009 Haider emailed again to the WCC organisers. “I am looking club fr next year do u have any club for me if u have I need 2 contrect (sic) with any club plz.”
He made no mention of money. Clearly, if he were to have a contract with an English club, then money would almost certainly be involved. But the implication was that while he wanted enough to live on, payment was not his priority.
Instead of playing club cricket the next summer, he was otherwise engaged, scoring 0 and 88 on his Test debut at Edgbaston — the latter an innings of such character that it halted, even if it did not reverse, the tide of the series and provoked Stuart Broad into hurling the ball at him.
The evidence suggests Haider is an outsider, an attitude which the Pakistan board’s cancellation of his contract will only reinforce; and that he has chosen sacrifice, even martyrdom in terms of his professional career, for the sake of a noble cause, rather than being drawn into an evil in which, as he sees it, “a lot of people are involved”.
On Saturday he upped that to say he had been told in Pakistan that “many people are involved”. And the probability is that Haider is right.
Haider timeline
Nov 5: Haider hits winning runs as Pakistan edge a thrilling one-day game against South Africa in Dubai.
Nov 7: Haider is one of three Pakistan players fined for breaking a team curfew.
Nov 8: He leaves hotel on morning of fifth one-dayer and flies to UK. A message on his Facebook site claims he has received threats from a would-be match-fixer.
Nov 9: Haider announces his retirement from international cricket, amid suggestions he is claiming political asylum in this country as he fears for his safety.
Nov 10: It is alleged by Haider that he received threats while playing domestic cricket in Pakistan for the Lahore Eagles. Pakistan suspend Haider’s stipend contract (one level below central contract) and the player is contacted by the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit.
Nov 11: Haider insists players’ phones need to be tapped by the ICC if match-fixing is to be properly stamped out. Player says match-fixers wanted to kill him and his family.
Nov 12: It emerges that Haider was unlikely to play the fifth one-day game against South Africa. PCB officials make contact with player.
Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider will give name of coach to anti-corruption unit - Telegraph
Telegraph: Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider will give name of coach to anti-corruption unit
Zulqarnain Haider, Pakistan's wicketkeeper, will give the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit useful evidence when they interview him again this week, following his flight from Dubai last week.
By Scyld Berry 11:47PM GMT 13 Nov 2010
Haider, who fled to London last Monday, following death threats when he refused to fix two matches against South Africa, will name the coach who he claims forced him to stand down from the captaincy of Lahore Eagles for their 50-over match against National Bank of Pakistan on March 28 2009, which ended in one of the most astonishing results ever recorded.
Lahore Eagles scored 122 from 40.3 overs. NBP, who had to win convincingly to improve their net run-rate to qualify for the semi-finals of the Royal Bank of Scotland Cup, replied with 123 for no wicket off 6.1 overs. Salman Butt, the suspended Pakistan captain, scored an unbeaten 92 off 25 balls. Kamran Akmal was the NBP captain, and Wahab Riaz and Mohammed Amir were also in the winning team.
Haider recalled the incident in his uncertain English: “One night before – I was captain for my team – they gave the captaincy to another player and said 'you are not able to do captaincy’.”
And if Haider had remained captain, no doubt he would not have kept bowling Usman Sarwar, who had never played for Lahore before or since — who conceded 78 runs from three overs, mainly to Butt.
Who exactly told Haider to step down? “The coach said to me, if you do not rest, you will not be playing next year for Lahore.” The name of the coach, Haider yesterday told The Sunday Telegraph, is Sajad Akbar.
This new evidence will pile the pressure on the Pakistan Cricket Board after they found no evidence of foul play when they first investigated this match. Pakistan, having been informally threatened by the International Cricket Council with being banned from the next World Cup if they do not put their house in order, have begun to act, banning the leg-spinner Danish Kaneria from the current Test series against South Africa. Kaneria was arrested by Essex police last season and questioned about “match irregularities”.
He was cleared of any offence in September. A well-placed ICC source said yesterday: “There is a strong ICC determination that any player who has been implicated should not be permitted to play in international or domestic cricket.”
Last week in Dubai was the only time, Haider said, he had been offered money for match-fixing. “I go home and spend time with family, I don’t want to meet bad people. I pray but praying is not everything. We need peace in all the world. I am against terrorism.” Even on a telephone line to Australia, his earnestness and sincerity were almost palpable.
Haider is one of less than a handful of Shi’a Muslims out of Pakistan’s 202 Test cricketers to date, even though Shi’as make up at least one-quarter of the country’s population. Normally, a cricketer’s religion should be a private matter. In this case, the values of Shi’asm may well be relevant, for it focuses on self-sacrifice and martyrdom for a noble cause, and followers are usually the have-nots of this material world.
Haider applied to play the Wisden City Cup in 2009. He turned up for trials at Victoria Park in London in the hope of playing for the London East team. He was not selected, as the competition is for UK residents of inner cities, but it indicated how keen he was for a game.
He kept in touch. In October 2009 Haider emailed to say he had made “54 not out in 1st game agaist (sic) Lahore v ztbl on last wicket with saeed ajmal partnership around 90 runs save ztbl
in 1st ing.” Zarai TBL is another company running a team in Pakistan cricket.
In November 2009 Haider emailed again to the WCC organisers. “I am looking club fr next year do u have any club for me if u have I need 2 contrect (sic) with any club plz.”
He made no mention of money. Clearly, if he were to have a contract with an English club, then money would almost certainly be involved. But the implication was that while he wanted enough to live on, payment was not his priority.
Instead of playing club cricket the next summer, he was otherwise engaged, scoring 0 and 88 on his Test debut at Edgbaston — the latter an innings of such character that it halted, even if it did not reverse, the tide of the series and provoked Stuart Broad into hurling the ball at him.
The evidence suggests Haider is an outsider, an attitude which the Pakistan board’s cancellation of his contract will only reinforce; and that he has chosen sacrifice, even martyrdom in terms of his professional career, for the sake of a noble cause, rather than being drawn into an evil in which, as he sees it, “a lot of people are involved”.
On Saturday he upped that to say he had been told in Pakistan that “many people are involved”. And the probability is that Haider is right.
Haider timeline
Nov 5: Haider hits winning runs as Pakistan edge a thrilling one-day game against South Africa in Dubai.
Nov 7: Haider is one of three Pakistan players fined for breaking a team curfew.
Nov 8: He leaves hotel on morning of fifth one-dayer and flies to UK. A message on his Facebook site claims he has received threats from a would-be match-fixer.
Nov 9: Haider announces his retirement from international cricket, amid suggestions he is claiming political asylum in this country as he fears for his safety.
Nov 10: It is alleged by Haider that he received threats while playing domestic cricket in Pakistan for the Lahore Eagles. Pakistan suspend Haider’s stipend contract (one level below central contract) and the player is contacted by the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit.
Nov 11: Haider insists players’ phones need to be tapped by the ICC if match-fixing is to be properly stamped out. Player says match-fixers wanted to kill him and his family.
Nov 12: It emerges that Haider was unlikely to play the fifth one-day game against South Africa. PCB officials make contact with player.
Pakistan wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider will give name of coach to anti-corruption unit - Telegraph
Faisal1985
International Vice-Captain
Well...the article is pretty well informed of the facts....and more or less summarizes the whole situation...
Attention. Money. Political asylum. English county cricket.
Fusion
Global Moderator
Osman Samiuddin, as usual, summarizes my feelings on this issue.
The curious case of Zulqarnain
Osman Samiuddin
November 16, 2010
A confession: over a week on, little of the curious case of Zulqarnain Haider makes sense to me. Certainly nothing in it makes the kind of sense that much of the British press has made of it. In that simplified, romanticised narrative he is already the sole knight raging against the darkness that engulfs all of Pakistan. It's no fun - and probably not very healthy - to be the cynic, but with more questions than answers at this stage, I cannot buy into this so readily.
Is he really cricket's latest whistleblower? As I last understood the job description, whistleblowers reveal the rottenness of an entity they are a part of, usually at great cost to themselves. Rashid Latif outed several people in his own side in the mid-90s, including the captain. He was a whistleblower.
So far Zulqarnain has outed an Asian man who speaks a little Urdu. To the ACSU: good luck finding him in Dubai, short of neither Asians nor Urdu-speakers. ESPNcricinfo understands the ACSU has not been told a great deal more so far than what Haider has publicly said. This is not whistleblowing yet; this is finding an incredibly convoluted way of reporting an approach by a suspect personality.
The other revelation is concerning a domestic 50-over game from March 2009, and it isn't much of a revelation. Haider was dumped as captain of Lahore Eagles ahead of the game, against National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), because, he says, he refused to pick players imposed upon him. The scorecard has a bizarre, men-against-children look to it. Two players who played for the Eagles hadn't played before and have not played since; one of them conceded 78 runs in three overs. As part of the narrative, this game is thus fixed, Haider faced threats then as he did now and so domestic cricket in Pakistan is crooked; moreover an NBP side with Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Kamran Akmal is a fine bit of clinching evidence.
Why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn, eh? One of the players selected was no cricketer but no fixer either; his father is a local Lahore administrator who desperately wanted his son to play a representative game. It is the kind of forced selection that the subcontinent's domestic- and junior-level cricket is littered with. It is a problem, but of a different type entirely.
The Eagles, incidentally, are the poor cousins of Lahore, the second-string team in which play the second-string talent of the city. They had lost three games fairly convincingly before this one. Above all, the match wasn't even televised, and TV we know, is the oxygen of bookie-dom.
With these kinds of exposés Haider is simply an asylum-seeker, not a whistleblower.
And much else besides should be questioned. Why did he leave updates on Facebook for all to see? And go to a TV reporter first instead of approaching the PCB or the ACSU? That, I find difficult to dispute, says more about Haider than it does about either the PCB or ACSU. The PCB is inept, incompetent, disgraceful, but to assume they may be in cahoots with the underworld is still a considerable leap. And Tim May's argument that the ACSU cannot be trusted to keep secrets is irrelevant here at best. The one thing that is blindingly clear is that Haider is not a man looking for anonymity.
Nor did he approach anyone in the team. It's been easy to forget over the last few months that there remain characters in and around Pakistan cricket untainted by such muck; could not even one, such as Younis Khan, or Abdul Razzaq be spoken to in confidence? Haider says he wanted to protect the team by not telling them. And telling the rest of the world instead protects his teammates how?
Why wait four days and play one game before leaving? Why go to the UK and leave your family in the hands of Lahore police, which as every citizen of that beautiful city knows is in no hands at all? These questions are not to dismiss him or his deeds. These are logical questions that must be asked of a man who has taken a grave step.
Indeed, there is no need to be as dismissive and vindictive as some of the reactions from the rumpus that passes for a cricket fraternity here.
The approach itself is as believable as not. Who would still approach a side under such scrutiny? Or is it simply that the hooks are in that deep? But to swat it away as some have on the basis that Haider is no player of significance is to be blind. He was the wicketkeeper, a position Pakistan should know only too well, is uniquely capable of affecting the course of entire matches. Approaching a wicketkeeper, in fact, makes immense sense. Calling into question his mental health, as the team manager has done, is in outright bad taste.
What little I saw of Haider as a cricketer I liked. He isn't a great wicketkeeper - and the bar has been set remarkably low by Kamran Akmal - but clearly there is something in him that functional teams should like; a little fight, a little heart, something that equates to more than just the parts.
But a significant part of me looks at how energetically he hunts for media attention (and how much of it he has already attracted in a short career) and then to this episode, and does so with real worry and suspicion that none of it may be of any real consequence. Another smaller part can't help but worry why else someone would give up a budding career as an international cricketer if not because of something very serious and disturbing, something of immeasurably greater consequence.
The lack of any real resolution between those parts is the real frustration of the last week.
Link
The curious case of Zulqarnain
Osman Samiuddin
November 16, 2010
A confession: over a week on, little of the curious case of Zulqarnain Haider makes sense to me. Certainly nothing in it makes the kind of sense that much of the British press has made of it. In that simplified, romanticised narrative he is already the sole knight raging against the darkness that engulfs all of Pakistan. It's no fun - and probably not very healthy - to be the cynic, but with more questions than answers at this stage, I cannot buy into this so readily.
Is he really cricket's latest whistleblower? As I last understood the job description, whistleblowers reveal the rottenness of an entity they are a part of, usually at great cost to themselves. Rashid Latif outed several people in his own side in the mid-90s, including the captain. He was a whistleblower.
So far Zulqarnain has outed an Asian man who speaks a little Urdu. To the ACSU: good luck finding him in Dubai, short of neither Asians nor Urdu-speakers. ESPNcricinfo understands the ACSU has not been told a great deal more so far than what Haider has publicly said. This is not whistleblowing yet; this is finding an incredibly convoluted way of reporting an approach by a suspect personality.
The other revelation is concerning a domestic 50-over game from March 2009, and it isn't much of a revelation. Haider was dumped as captain of Lahore Eagles ahead of the game, against National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), because, he says, he refused to pick players imposed upon him. The scorecard has a bizarre, men-against-children look to it. Two players who played for the Eagles hadn't played before and have not played since; one of them conceded 78 runs in three overs. As part of the narrative, this game is thus fixed, Haider faced threats then as he did now and so domestic cricket in Pakistan is crooked; moreover an NBP side with Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Kamran Akmal is a fine bit of clinching evidence.
Why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn, eh? One of the players selected was no cricketer but no fixer either; his father is a local Lahore administrator who desperately wanted his son to play a representative game. It is the kind of forced selection that the subcontinent's domestic- and junior-level cricket is littered with. It is a problem, but of a different type entirely.
The Eagles, incidentally, are the poor cousins of Lahore, the second-string team in which play the second-string talent of the city. They had lost three games fairly convincingly before this one. Above all, the match wasn't even televised, and TV we know, is the oxygen of bookie-dom.
With these kinds of exposés Haider is simply an asylum-seeker, not a whistleblower.
And much else besides should be questioned. Why did he leave updates on Facebook for all to see? And go to a TV reporter first instead of approaching the PCB or the ACSU? That, I find difficult to dispute, says more about Haider than it does about either the PCB or ACSU. The PCB is inept, incompetent, disgraceful, but to assume they may be in cahoots with the underworld is still a considerable leap. And Tim May's argument that the ACSU cannot be trusted to keep secrets is irrelevant here at best. The one thing that is blindingly clear is that Haider is not a man looking for anonymity.
Nor did he approach anyone in the team. It's been easy to forget over the last few months that there remain characters in and around Pakistan cricket untainted by such muck; could not even one, such as Younis Khan, or Abdul Razzaq be spoken to in confidence? Haider says he wanted to protect the team by not telling them. And telling the rest of the world instead protects his teammates how?
Why wait four days and play one game before leaving? Why go to the UK and leave your family in the hands of Lahore police, which as every citizen of that beautiful city knows is in no hands at all? These questions are not to dismiss him or his deeds. These are logical questions that must be asked of a man who has taken a grave step.
Indeed, there is no need to be as dismissive and vindictive as some of the reactions from the rumpus that passes for a cricket fraternity here.
The approach itself is as believable as not. Who would still approach a side under such scrutiny? Or is it simply that the hooks are in that deep? But to swat it away as some have on the basis that Haider is no player of significance is to be blind. He was the wicketkeeper, a position Pakistan should know only too well, is uniquely capable of affecting the course of entire matches. Approaching a wicketkeeper, in fact, makes immense sense. Calling into question his mental health, as the team manager has done, is in outright bad taste.
What little I saw of Haider as a cricketer I liked. He isn't a great wicketkeeper - and the bar has been set remarkably low by Kamran Akmal - but clearly there is something in him that functional teams should like; a little fight, a little heart, something that equates to more than just the parts.
But a significant part of me looks at how energetically he hunts for media attention (and how much of it he has already attracted in a short career) and then to this episode, and does so with real worry and suspicion that none of it may be of any real consequence. Another smaller part can't help but worry why else someone would give up a budding career as an international cricketer if not because of something very serious and disturbing, something of immeasurably greater consequence.
The lack of any real resolution between those parts is the real frustration of the last week.
Link
