I have a big fan of cricket and the Pakistani cricket team since I was old enough to understand the game. Today, I read an article on BBC about the new chairman of the Pakistani Cricket Board, Dr Nasim Ashraf, asking the team to stop exhibiting religious beliefs in public.

The overly enthusiastic religious fervor of the team has been bothering me for quite some time. Gone are the days of clubbing, drinking, and partying during tours. Womanizers like the legendary Imran Khan have become a thing of the past as well. These days the team looks more like a band of mullahs than a set of athletes. Every interview begins with thanking God for the victory as if the team was fighting for God instead of the fans and on behalf of the country. Players are converting to Islam and saying prayers in groups on the field. The training sessions are halted for prayers during practice and the players are also steadfastly observing Ramadan. I have also heard of rumors of players being pressured to become more religious. The accusations have changed as well. The players of today are charged with ball tampering, use of steroids, walking out of matches instead of ‘poor moral behavior’.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the team should be drinking and clubbing the night before a game nor do I think that people do not have the right to express their personal or religious beliefs. What constitutes as ‘poor moral behavior’ is a whole other debate. Fasting during Ramadan and halting practice for prayers is also debatable. I remember Hakeem Olajuwon fasting and playing fine basket ball during Ramadan. But what does religion have to do with cricket and sport in general? The Pakistani team thanks God after winning a match as if the captain was the new Saladin and the team had driven away the crusaders. Does God really care whether the Pakistani teams wins or loses a cricket match? Wouldn’t God be concerned about more important things such as rewarding the believers and punishing the sinners, perhaps feeding the hungry and curing the sick? What about planning the next calamity to obliterate the heathens or the sinning believers?

Why is this phenomenon only present in the Pakistani team? I don’t see the Turkish or Saudi teams bowing down to God after winning a soccer match. I think this comes back to the same issue of the Pakistanis’ insecurity about being lesser Muslims. In my opinion, the anguish felt by many Pakistanis due to a shared history and ancestry with the ‘idol-worshippers’ of the neighboring country causes them to be over enthusiastic about their Islamic zeal. We must prove to the other Muslims that we are just as much if not more Muslim as them, even if we are not from Arabia. We must show the world that we are Muslim and our team won because God is helping us.

I was born in Pakistan and I have spent half of my life in that Country. I have heard many Pakistanis who attempt to deny their past and tell me that they are not Indian. They try to say that their ancestors came from Saudi Arabia some other Arab country and therefore they are somehow above the culture and heritage of the subcontinent. I am not going to go into the absurdity of these claims and wonder how they could link their lineage directly to Arabs and prove that their families don’t have any mixed blood.

I will however say that lest we forget, Pakistan is an invented country, based on the imaginations of certain intellectuals. A country that came into existence 59 years ago. Prior to that, Pakistanis and ‘Pakistaniat’ didn’t exist. It is pathetic to assume that somehow we don’t belong to a history that is thousands of years old compared to the 59 year old embarrassing history of Pakistan.

As for God caring about the Pakistani cricket team, I think it is laughable. God doesn’t even seem to care about Pakistan, a country that was specifically created for God. Today, God’s country is one of most corrupt countries on earth.

I love Pakistan because I was born there and I am proud of our south Indian culture and heritage. But I do wish that Pakistanis stopped associating the country with religion and accept the reality of Pakistani history. The marriage of state and religion has created a ugly fiend that is not even sure of its own identity. It was created so that the believers could be separated from the idol worshipping kafirs. We forget or deny that the idol worshippers were our ancestors as well. No matter what we do to prove otherwise this fact will always remain true. If you chose to accept the delusion that you are culturally associated with the invading foreigners from Arabia and have no ties to Indian culture, I do request that you try to refrain from imposing that ludicrous claim on the rest of us.

It is sort of amusing that I came from one of God’s countries and ended up in another, though this God has progeny unlike the God of Pakistan. I am talking about Ireland of course. Unlike Pakistan, this country was not created for God, but God claimed it with the help of St Patrick. Although to a lesser extent, religion, culture and state are intertwined here as well. The Irish weren’t able to divorce their spouses until the late 1990s. Birth Control arrived later than other European countries. Abortion is still illegal here. Yet, the Irish are a lot different than the Pakistanis when it comes to religion. The country is changing quickly and morphing into a secular state, which is why Irish church seems to think that Ireland is being invaded by a ‘cult of secularists’. But, the biggest difference between the Irish and Pakistanis is that Irish people have respect for their past. They are not ashamed of the ruins and tombs of their idol worshippers. Even the Irish cross, reflects their past as the circle in the cross represents the sun worshipping pagans that lived in Ireland prior to their conversion to Christianity. One could say that St Patrick used the circle in the cross so that it was more appealing to pagans and thus sped up their conversion. Whatever the reason behind the cross, the Irish haven’t broken any crosses that contain the circle. Sadly, the Pakistanis however, have eradicated many temples in order to rewrite their past and continue to do so….