New Delhi: Pakistanis have gone from cursing their Interior Minister and PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi to celebrating him. He has done the impossible— said no to an India-Pakistan match.
After weeks of dilly-dallying, Pakistan announced Sunday that while they would play the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, they will boycott the India-Pakistan match on 15 February.
Pakistanis are exhilarated. It is a win for them— a ‘gutsy decision’ by Naqvi. For others, it’s a checkmate move.
Others called him ‘unhinged’. “mohsin naqvi is probably the most dramatic and unhinged chairman pcb ever, crazy aura”, X user Iffi wrote.
Others agreed. ‘I gotta really respect Mohsin Naqvi. Took on cricket powerhouse like BCCI, didn’t give away asia cup trophy, took their matches out of india, boycotted a high stakes game. Both Bangladesh & Pakistan have given a tight slap on the faces of incompetent BCCI and Government,” X user Rahul Dher wrote.
An X user, CricMate, shared a video of a man dancing in front of an audience and wrote: ‘Jay Shah in front of Mohsin Naqvi’.
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Moment ripe for memes
It was a moment ripe for memes, and Pakistanis did not let it go.
X user Daniyal shared a clip of Nana Patekar and Rishi Kapoor arguing about saying a please and compared it to Jay Shah and Mohsin Naqvi.
A user called @usmsss shared a video of Virat Kohli singing a popular Bollywood song on separation and captioned it: “broadcasters hearing that there will be no india pakistan match”
A well-known meme page on X, Pehn di Siri shared a picture of Mohsin Naqvi wearing an Arab costume and wrote: “Pakistan decided to form its own ICC – ISLAMIC CRICKET COUNCIL In alliance with KSA, Qatar, UAE, etc.”
But perhaps the best commentary on the entire issue came from the X page of Iceland cricket, which has quickly emerged as one of the leading cricket commentary pages on X, known for their quirky humour.
“When we invented cricket in 911 CE, we became the de facto governing body not just of Iceland but the world. There was a lot of bad player behaviour that we let go, but the teams still turned up and always played the matches (battles!). Values were different then,” the account wrote.
Iceland cricket had earlier jokingly vouched to play on behalf of Pakistan if they chose to boycott the tournament, but later chose not to, because their captain, a baker, would not have dates to play.
There were saner voices, too. Pakistani cultural critic Sabahat Zakariya noted how the Pakistan government framed its tweets and the use of the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’. For her, Pakistan being a theocratic state doesn’t get any clearer.
“Iss context mayn khaas taur par ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ parh ke meray tan badan mayn aag lag jaati hai. But Jinnah DP trolls will convince me the country is not a theocracy,” she posted on X.
Another user, Jasir Shahbaz, wrote: “Mohsin Naqvi and BCCI a match made in hell”.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)