How do I save my skin?

Safely speaking nationals of as many as 150 countries at least including the citizens of cricket playing nations namely Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, West Indies and Zimbabwe as well live in Kuwait and quite luckily being here since 1978, I enjoy very good, more correctly, exclusive entity particularly in the diplomatic circle not just amongst Pakistanis but expatriates as a whole and that too for so many long years to be honest in this tiny oil exporting country.

As and when my beloved Pakistan’s cricket team plays against any team either a test match, faces one day game or encounters a T 20, most of the times I am approached by some cricket lovers of other cricket playing nations to either congratulate me on our success or ridicule me for that matter on tasting defeat,as the case may be, and I being on the receiving end have no alternative but to thank them for their feedback even when they rock me on our defeat. I dare not lose my temper when I am pricked by them on our defeat lest I am my own enemy and want to lose a friend and earn an enemy instead and that too in a foreign land not on account of any quarrel between we two but just because of our defeat in cricket.

I was already very much shocked and defaced simply because continually for all those days when Pakistan played three test matches in Australia, I had been receiving very sweet messages, quinine in fact, from others including diplomats and each time I just controlled my inner feelings and kept on thanking them for their interest in the game. I must mention that as my bad luck had it, 3 Indians, 3 Sri Lankans, 2 British, and 2 Bengalis called me after we lost the test series against Australia as to how could we scale to the top of the ladder in test ranking when we could not even win one match forget about the series? They pressed hard asking me to explain as to how we reached to the top or, for that matter, how we could not maintain it for some time rather than slipping down so quickly and I was pale and pushed to the corner as if I have personally been knocked out and not my beloved Pakistan cricket team for that matter.

I had not forgotten the injuries inflicted to me after test defeats though with the passage of the time the pain had lessened a bit and I very impatiently waited about ODI series simply because and I wished that in this format of the game we will triumph facilitating me to hurl back all those who hurt me on our defeats in the test matches but again they got a golden opportune to punch me though I wanted to pounce on them instead.

When Pakistan will win to wipe off my tears and bring back smile instead? Who realizes my mental agony? Why am I subjected to such torture and humiliation fir none of my contribution or fault? Google my name to see me with VIPs and then decide why and how I am targeted alike.

IqbalHadiZaidi / Former Pakistani Diplomat in Kuwait