After three tumultuous years, the words “Ijaz”, “Butt”, “good” and “news” were finally used in the same sentence today when the beleaguered nation that is Pakistan learned that Mr. Butt’s tenure as Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief ended. Whoever this Mr. Zaka Ashraf is, he surely can do no worse than Ijaz Butt, a man who personified incompetence, pettiness, stubbornness, stupidity, impulsiveness, immaturity, mismanagement, authoritarianism, and megalomania in equal parts.
Don't let the door hit you on your way out, buddy. Pic: AP
Here is a brief rundown of his greatest hits while in office. Read ‘em and weep. And then thank whatever deity you believe in that he is gone, hopefully to be consumed by the dustbin of history.
October 7, 2008: Appointed chairman of the PCB. Our three year national nightmare begins.
October 17, 2008: Ten days into his tenure, we have our first selection committee and management change. Salahuddin is replaced by Saleem Jaffer as chairman of the committee; Talat Ali steps down as team manager. A month later, the interim committee is dismissed, and Abdul Qadir is appointed to head the new committee.
October, 20-24, 2008: Our first coaching change, and beautifully done it was too. On October 20, Butt tells the media he won’t renew Geoff Lawson’s contract, due to expire the next spring. Except no one told Lawson, least of all Butt; Lawson learns of Butt’s feelings through the media. Butt then tracks back slightly, saying that he “fully backs” Lawson. This happens on October 23. On October 24, Lawson is sacked. Intikhab Alam is appointed in his place in November.
January 27, 2009: The first change in captaincy under Ijaz Butt. Shoaib Malik, accused of being a “loner”, is relieved of his duties, and Younis Khan takes over in all formats.
February, 2009: Butt’s tiff with Miandad gets taken up by parliament. Miandad claims he was not given precise duties and responsibilities as Director General of PCB (a purely made up position). In a briefing to the Senate, Butt bizarrely claims that the PCB never actually signed a formal contract with Miandad. “I admit it was our mistake as we didn’t sign a contract with Miandad when he was appointed as DG in December,” he says. Two days later, he is asked to resign by parliament. This is the first but not the last time that particular demand is made at Butt by legislators.
March, 2009: A terrorist attack takes place against the visiting Sri Lankan team. Butt deflects blame from the board, and blames the government. “Nowhere in the world does the cricket board interfere in the security matters – it’s the sole responsibility of the government,” he says. Six months earlier, he had claimed that the government was taking demonstrable steps to improve security (it wasn’t), and that he was glad the Champions Trophy was going to be held in Pakistan in 2009 (it wasn’t).
Days later, Butt accuses match official Chris Broad of lying about the lax security provided to umpires and match officials. Umpire Steve Taufel backs Broad.
One week after the attacks, Butt claims that he expects cricket to be back in Pakistan in “six to nine months”. That was thirty one months ago.
Not one single PCB official resigned his post after the attack.
April, 2009: The World Cup in 2011 is taken away from Pakistan due to security concerns. Butt in turns institutes legal action against the ICC. The case is settled four months later, out of court.
June 8, 2009: Abdul Qadir resigns as chief selector, less than six months after taking the position. Reports indicate it was due to differences with Butt. Wasim Bari takes over as interim head. Less than three weeks later, the Bari-interim committee is sacked, with immediate effect. Iqbal Qasim takes over as chief selector in July.
October, 2009: Younis Khan resigns as captain, largely due to differences with senior players in the team — the so-called Punjabi mafia. Butt hopes to convince him to change his mind. They meet, have a “detailed discussion” but Younis refuses to budge. Two months later, despite being fit and willing to play, and despite the Pakistan team in desperate need of middle order support on a tough tour in Australia, Younis is not called up.
January 9, 2010: Jamshed Dasti, a parliamentarian, calls for Butt to resign. “”He (Butt) has gone too old,” Dasti said. “Mr Butt is physically unfit, he can’t even walk properly, he can’t even see properly.”
January 31, 2010: Iqbal Qasim resigns as chief selector after the horror Australia tour. Mohsin Khan takes over a couple of months later. By some minor miracle, that is the position he still enjoys today, though he almost resigned in May, 2011.
February, 2010: More pressure from parliament to resign. Javed Miandad throws in a barb for good measure, also claiming that Butt is “too old” for the job.
February 10, 2010: Butt is served legal notice for defamatory comments he made about the cricket board in the U.S. He had called them an “illegal institution”.
February 12, 2010: Patience in Pakistan is running thin. Imran Yusuf pens a column on Butt’s staying power, saying that “Compared to Ijaz Butt, previous Pakistani dictators look lightweight. We got rid of them all, eventually, but it seems nothing can dislodge Mr Butt” and adding that “The 80s autocrat General Zia was eventually assassinated, but nobody would ever touch Butt. There’d be no point. He’d survive a nuclear holocaust.”
March 2010: Not for the last time, the specter of match fixing raises its head, with claims that at least one Pakistani player was involved in throwing games on the previous tour to Australia. Butt brushes aside the concerns, saying that the cases concern episodes from “ten or twelve years” ago. Relatedly, each of Salman Butt, Mohammed Asif, Mohammed Amir, Kamran Akmal, and Umar Akmal were on the Australian tour.
In the same month, the PCB drops the hammer on senior players, banning and fining the so-called “seniors” after the disastrous tour to Australia. Two months later, all the punishments are either watered down or dropped entirely.
Intikhab Alam is also set aside as coach, and Waqar Younis takes over. Mohammad Yousuf is dropped as captain, and Shahid Afridi is persuaded to return to test cricket and assume the captaincy.
July 16, 2010: Afridi quits test cricket after one game as captain. Salman Butt takes over.
August 11, 2010: Yet another parliamentarian, Iqbal Mohammad Ali, demands the removal of Butt.
August 17, 2010: A year and a half after the incident, the PCB sends a report to the ICC on the Sri Lankan terrorist attack in Lahore.
September, 2010: After the excrement collides with the fan on spot-fixing, Ijaz Butt steps it up. He first accuses England of also being a bunch of fixers, when leads to English demands that he apologize, which lead Butt to promise that he won’t apologize, which, naturally, leads to him apologizing.
In his formal apology, Butt claims that “I would like to make it quite clear that in the statements which I made that I never intended to question the behaviour and integrity of the England players nor the ECB nor to suggest that any of them were involved in any corrupt practices or in a conspiracy against Pakistan cricket.” Ten days earlier, he had said “There is loud and clear talk in bookie circles that some English players have taken enormous amounts of money to lose the match [the third ODI]. No wonder there was such a collapse.”
October, 2010: For the first time since being appointed, there are rumblings that Butt may be sacked. The same month, the ICC threatens to expel Pakistan if it doesn’t fix its issues.
A full year after his tiff with Younis Khan began, it was settled.
In the same month, Misbah is appointed captain, following Salman Butt’s legal issues. It is the ninth change in captaincy in Butt’s tenure.
March, 2011: After a surprising World Cup performance, which saw Pakistan get into the semi finals of a tournament it had no business contesting, Afridi is dropped as ODI captain. He was confirmed only a few weeks before the tournament in the first place. Misbah takes over as captain in all formats. Butt claims that there are “solid reasons” for deposing Afridi but refuses to elaborate.
June, 2011: Butt takes a one-month leave from his post, quite possibly the best month in Pakistan’s cricketing history.
October, 2011: After having his extension reportedly “under consideration”, Ijaz Butt’s term is not renewed. He is replaced by banker and industrialist Zaka Ashraf.
So, to sum up: 36 months, double-digit changes in captaincy, three coaches, five selection committees, one terrorist attack, one World Cup lost, one spot-fixing scandal, one accusation of fixing in other teams, four separate demands by parliament to resign, and zero shame.
And now, an apposite song.