Dream of Pakistan's Cap (Part 8)

There is indeed little proof on paper that an anti-Ahmadi policy exists to disenfranchise cricketers, from the PCB down to local tiers, but religious bias is rarely articulated as public policy. The possibility that other factors play a role in Rabwah's players not being selected cannot be discounted. As Haye acknowledges, there is a culture of politicking and favouritism and lobbying at every level of Pakistani cricket, which mistakenly denies and rewards players all the time. But with Ahmadis, the "religious label", as Haye sees it, cannot help but add another layer.

Given that cricket is synonymous with a conflated sense of nationalism as well as Islamic identity, it doesn't seem possible in the current climate that an Ahmadi would be selected for the Pakistan side without causing some kind of furore. (By contrast, hockey is so ignored now that it seems to have largely escaped attention that an Ahmadi has captained the national side in the modern age.)

Dream of Pakistan's Cap (Part 7)

Zubair wants to leave too, but his family doesn't have the money. He's hoping to convince his father to at least send his brother away. Zubair started playing cricket the year Mohammad Amir got banned. Amir is set to return to the Pakistan side a few days after this match and Zubair plans to watch. "Once he comes and plays, everyone will realise that he is a good bowler. There is no other bowler like him. He is a child who made a mistake."

Zubair stopped studying after second grade. He says he was far more interested in cricket. He only speaks in Punjabi, though a word or two of Urdu occasionally squeezes itself into conversation. He seems far too young to be burdened with the life he leads. "My brother works in the graveyard and I work at a kitchen-utensils shop in the market. I earn Rs 3000 [about $29] a month. I work two and a half hours in the morning, and another two hours in the evening."

It is a bright, clear day and it feels like June as the sun beats down on the ground; remarkable for early January in Punjab. Layers are being peeled off, and the match continues.

Dream of Pakistan's Cap (Part 6)

Fazl-e-Umar routinely play against visiting clubs and tour other cities, though Haye notes that nowhere else are the facilities as good. Occasionally a star cricketer or two has shown up in Rabwah, including Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez. Ajmal, the legend goes, was hit for seven sixes in six overs, and the umpire wanted to report his action. Haye stopped him from doing so, not wanting to offend their guests.

Rabwah has no star cricketers of its own. Faisal bin Mubashir may be the best-known Ahmadi cricketer in recent years, and while his team-mates know of his faith, it isn't a fact he pushes in anyone's face. When he visits Rabwah he tries to pass on to the club's players what he has gleaned over the years.

There is an Urdu phrase that you will hear often in Rabwah: rang lagna. Literally, it means to be coloured, but in this case it is taken to mean getting the green cap of Pakistan. This national recognition remains out of reach in Rabwah, where the belief that societal discrimination against Ahmadis must naturally extend to cricket is embedded. None of the boys believe they will ever have a shot at representing Pakistan, even if only a few have gone further than club cricket.

On the surface their stories are not different to those of so many aspiring cricketers who feel they have not got their due because they didn't have the right connections or didn't come from the right part of the country. But unlike the majority, underpinning the disgruntlement of these stories is their faith.

"It's one thing if there is a future," Anas Amin, a 22-year-old bowler, tells me, his head bowed as he tries to keep score at the Sunday match. "The religious issue comes in between."

"You need a lot of hard work to play first-class," says Zubair Ahmad. "And our class will be an issue. We can't even greet anyone with salaam." (Ahmadis are not allowed to use Islamic words.)

The club has produced an array of cricketers they feel were above ordinary - several star batsmen, a fast bowler they felt was better than some who had represented Pakistan. But no one sticks around long enough. "They're all looking for an agent who can take them to Germany," Haye says and laughs. Eight of the club's best players recently moved to Germany, leaving Haye in the lurch, scrambling to recruit and train more players. The legend of the men who left overshadows almost every conversation. Everyone has a brother, a cousin or an uncle who made it out, and who managed to keep playing cricket in a league in England or Holland or Germany.

Leaving isn't easy. It can cost up to $15,000 to get out of Pakistan. "Anyone who has that much money can go to Germany or England, where their life will be much better," Zubair says. "They can play cricket in England. And earning a thousand [euros] there means Rs 100,000 in Pakistan." Many Ahmadis travel to Thailand or Sri Lanka, where they try and claim asylum, or use it as a base to strike out to Europe.

Father Knows

“Father! 

My father knows the proper way 

The nation should be run;

He tells us children every day

Just what should now be done.

He knows the way to fix the trusts,

He has a simple plan;

But if the furnace needs repairs,

We have to hire a man.

My father, in a day or two

Could land big thieves in jail;

There's nothing that he cannot do,

He knows no word like "fail."

"Our confidence" he would restore,

Of that there is no doubt;

But if there is a chair to mend,

We have to send it out.

All public questions that arise,

He settles on the spot;

He waits not till the tumult dies,

But grabs it while it's hot.

In matters of finance he can

Tell Congress what to do;

But, O, he finds it hard to meet

His bills as they fall due.

It almost makes him sick to read

The things law-makers say;

Why, father's just the man they need,

He never goes astray.

All wars he'd very quickly end,

As fast as I can write it;

But when a neighbor starts a fuss,

'Tis mother has to fight it.

In conversation father can

Do many wondrous things;

He's built upon a wiser plan

Than presidents or kings.

He knows the ins and outs of each

And every deep transaction;

We look to him for theories,

But look to ma for action” 

Dream of Pakistan's Cap (Part 5)

When Haye was growing up, he played cricket on a ground near Rabwah's main mosque. His parents couldn't afford to send him to study in Lahore, so he went to the local Taleem-ul-Islam College. During his secondary education, he moulded himself into a fast bowler. Cricket wasn't the town's dominant sport in the '60s and '70s - Rabwah's boys were big on rowing and basketball. Haye joined Fazl-e-Umar, which he recalls was formed in either 1969 or 1970 and was then registered under the Faisalabad division.

"There were about 20 to 30 of us," Haye remembered. He still has a pile of clippings about his short-lived career, culled from newspapers of the day - the Muslim and the Pakistan Times. In 1972, Haye was the only boy selected from Rabwah for Sargodha division's Under-19 team. He was recruited by the Pakistan Army to play for its myriad department teams. "During my time, the 501 Workshop [part of the army's engineering branch] won the inter-army championship for the first time in its history," Haye said. It was a feat he helped pull off by convincing the team management to let him bring in a couple of players from Rabwah - his brother and brother-in-law - and another from Islamabad. "I can't win with the players you've got," he told them.

Then Haye heard from Pakistan Television, who were not a first-class side at the time but in the grade below. They wanted to sign him up. Haye had a club match that day but he was in a car accident on the way to the game. That put him out of commission for a couple of months, effectively signalling the beginning of the end of his cricketing career. Meanwhile, jobs for Ahmadis were drying up. Haye's brother, his former coach and team-mates had already left for the West. He stayed back in Rabwah to take care of his parents, particularly his mother, who was bedridden. He opened a couple of businesses, including "Cassette House" - which now sells CDs but hasn't changed its signage - and a sporting goods shop.

By the early 2000s Fazl-e-Umar was floundering. Its star players were long gone, and there was no place to practise. Haye stepped in, registered the club with the PCB, and tried to whip the team into shape. Instead of finding conventional financial supporters, he roped in former team-mates, now comfortably ensconced in places like Germany. "I've made them into sponsors," he explained. "I said, 'Look, if you send €100 [approximately U$114], then we can do net practice for a month.' If I need to do nets, I need 14 bowlers, and 14 balls cost Rs 4000 [$38]. And if you don't change the ball after four or five days, the boys don't play." Despite issues with his back, Haye still bowls 40 to 50 balls a day in the nets.