One of the great things about Pakistani cricket is that no matter how professional cricket gets, they resist.
When Umar Amin played his first game at Lord’s, he had a helmet that looked like it had been passed down through 17 other players.
At times it appears that every player has a different kind of headwear.
And they don’t even have a press officer to help their players (especially those with limited English) with press conferences.
But this is my favourite part of their non-professionalism.
Many teams have fairly uniform profile pictures.
Yes there is one or two that is different, but they are pretty much the same.
Like this:
There is an order to this.
Generally all are done with either a professional photographer’s background, or grass.
Now, look at these.
Here we have Kamran Akmal with freaky lighting.
Ahzar Ali taken in some random office.
And Mohammad Asif looks like the head of marketing for a mobile phone company.
Tanvir Ahmed’s must be the best. This is not a cricket player’s profile, this is clearly his online dating photo. Underneath he writes, “Hi, I’m Tanvir, I’m a sensitive guy who believes that a woman’s need comes first. My friends think I have a great sense of humour. I own a cat called sniffy. And I’ve always been proud of my love making abilities. Give me a chance, I could be the man for you”.
Much less thought has gone into Umar Amin’s picture, which I assume was taken at Lord’s 8 minutes before the start of play.
Zulqarnain Haider (the master of facebook) doesn’t even have a picture.
Here we are almost 3 tests through the series, and no one has sent a picture of him to them.
Think about it, it isn’t like they need a professional photographer, which they have access to, or a good back ground, which they have access to, they just need someone with a camera phone taking a photo and emailing it to cricinfo.
It can’t be that hard.
Haider has been in the UK for a month, he could go into a passport photo booth, put 5 quid in, take the photos to a ground, give them to any cricket journalist that walks past, and it is done.
Instead he is a mystery man.
If Akmal keeps “keeping” the way he is, Haider could be a test player.
I just hope when his picture turns up at cricinfo, it is suitably random enough to be Pakistani.
Azhar Ali might actually be wearing South African shirt.. Quite possible. Perhaps PCB told him, “its close enough.. get it on.”
Its possible Asif wants to forget his past, the one where he wore the Pak colors but also got caught with drugs and switched to the corporate mode.
All in all, excellent unintentional humour. Brilliant! Love the hair and the beards!
Nice one.
Haha nice one. There was an interesting arcticle in cricinfo a few weeks back talking about players’ photos. The players aren’t happy with their photo so they ask for it to be replaced with another one. Here’s the article: http://blogs.cricinfo.com/tourdiaries/archives/2010/06/can_you_change.php
I reckon this is what Tanvir Ahmed done.
Azhar Ali’s / Wahab Riaz’ has been taken at the Pakpassion office, there are similar photos of other players. They are wearing the green Pakpassion shirts I think.
For example: Umar Akmal
Asif’s is monstrous.
Wonderful !! With the defeat looming – can you please let us enjoy the match? I am expecting the match to end by lunch today !!
Anyways – to feed your curiosity, you can see Zulqarnain Haider at:
http://www.pcboard.com.pk/Archive/Players/45/45108/45108.html
I must say that you are not missing much : ) Enjoy!!!
JRod,
We in the subcontinent believe in ‘Unity in Diversity’. India at least has made a virtue out of this dire necessity. The English are too disciplined for our liking.
Imagine a life without Pakistan and their wonderful but idiosyncratic players. You’d be out of job and we wouldn’t be reading CWB. You owe hell of a lot to Pakistan. I am an Indian but have always loved Pakistan’s brand of Cricket. In spite of all the controversies and in-fighting, Wasim Akram and Waqar Yunis remain my all time favorites !
There are two things here.
1. Most of the pictures (probably, all!) of Pakistani players here have been notched up by you from cricinfo’s player profiles. That just cannot be a criteria to take a professionalism knowledge assesment.
2. In every tour/series/tournament, players do get pictures taken by the media sponsors of that specific tour/series etc, be it electronic or print media (Hints: Sky/ESPN player snaps before they come out to bat or bowl showing their stats).
p.s. Yes, our players are still 2 decades behind of adopting professionalism. And boy, the day they catch up (IF they do), it won’t be pretty, trust me, for anyone ;)
Masuud, all of the pictures are from cricinfo, but so are all of the English players.
Ghurram & Dibyo, you too need to stop licking toads.
ok, you finally made me laugh after ages and a lot of silly blog posts.
and then i saw this: http://img.skysports.com/09/02/218×298/Zulqarnain-Haider_1864995.jpg, and continued laughing. that’s the missing pic, btw.
ROTFL … and to think you lost your touch !
Kind of off-topic.
But the David Cameron bloke of yours seems to be taking an interesting angle of promoting this series.
Now that’s a nice eye UncleJ. Damn good piece!
Normally I am the first one to make fun of Pakistani team and I must admit this blog entry is damn funny.
But on a serious note the Pakistan team is under no obligation to send their photographs to cricinfo. Its not that cricinfo are the official site for cricket or something.
But I must admit even if it were something official, the photographs would have been the same :)
hahaha Brilliant ahhh this make me happy again. I am waiting for an update in profile picture since you have mentioned now.
There’s nothing wrong with Kamran Akmal’s picture, he just has behind him those evil spirit thingys that were at the end of the early 90s tearjerker Ghost. Waiting patiently to take him away. Now seems as good a time as any.
Piss funny………
there is a uniformity only in the pictures of all the senior players ( dark green shirt and grey background) … probably the newer guys arent made to feel like equals…
looks like the blokes at cricinfo are checkin yr site all the time bcuz they have already changed azhar ali’s foto from this one after prolly readin yr article, jrod
rotf! it was a very good post, JRod if you can plz get the video clipping of kamran akmal’s intro before he comes onto bat in a T20I, it goes on as “Hi, My name is Kamran Akmal, Fav Shot, Anywhere for six!” He is in folded hands and the way he says it is a treat to watch.
I went to Asif’s cricinfo profile page a week or so ago, one of the tests when he kicked Aus’s butt into touch, clicked out in disbelief, then back in again to see if that photo was really there.
Ha,ha,ha. they are like some silent film comedy team, not quite like any thing else around.
Well, i think your article was just another pakistan bashing exercise. Most of the pak cricketer come from very poor background with very little or even no education.most probably they have never used internet before they joined the team and might have not even seen thier cricinfo profile.and there is strong possibility than might also not have visited cricinfo.so i dont think they are at fault.
Taxzu, I think you missed the point here, it isn’t the pakistani cricketers who are supposed to send their pictures to cricinfo, it is the PCB. They have computers at the PCB, as I’ve seen the email they sent about Shoaib’s genital warts.