Caught and bowled

The sacrifices Shoaib Malik has to make for marital bliss.

Truth be told, it is easy to become insensitive in this line of work. People think journalists, when told about a disaster, first want to know how many have died so they can decide the display of the story. They know nothing yet. Journalists bemoan the lack of deaths in a disaster if there are only injuries.

Every once in a while, though, a story breaks which tends to tug at your heart strings, knotted and frayed as they might be. One such is the latest on Shoaib Malik, once the captain and star all-rounder of Pakistan’s cricket team, now better known as the man who married Sania Mirza (snatched her from under the Indians’ noses, triumphant Pakistanis would tell you).

Given the tangled web of Pakistan’s cricket administration, we would never know why Malik was dropped for the Test against Australia at Lords. The team manager says for poor form; everyone else says because he chose to spend more time with the wife than at practice. Apparently, Malik’s commitment to the team was questioned because he frequently came late for team meetings and skipped training sessions. In short, he has been spending too much time with the wife.

That may have cost him a place in the team, but it has earned him the sympathy of many married men and unadulterated admiration of your columnist. All men feel this pressure, but Malik has figured out his priorities.

Malik’s central contract was annulled this year because of a ban and fine imposed on him by the cricket board for indiscipline during Pakistan’s disastrous tour of Australia. However, soon after he married Sania in April, he was recalled to the national team. Perhaps the new wife and marriage had turned his luck. But his ouster from the team douses such hope.

The question, though, is what is a man to do if he has to keep a woman happy? He, like all men, will fail eventually, but it ought not to be for want of trying. It wouldn’t help Malik that Sania does not appear to be the sacrificing type, one who would send the husband away to answer the call of duty with an earthen lamp in hand and a prayer on her lips. In the past, she has been forthright in her conduct, like a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it.

In working out his priorities so clearly, Malik may have been helped by Sania, who may have simply told him what those were (wife above cricket and all else). One also wonders whether Sania got the whiff that Malik, until he got married, put cricket above everything else. So she, like all women, may have acted with alacrity to make sure she was above that one thing her husband valued the most.

This is the way it used to happen in the olden days, when men put their mothers first, leading to endless saas-bahu feuds. But those were the days when jobs were just a means to earn the livelihood and mothers stayed with their married sons. Now, in many households the mother-in-law is out of the picture and career has become paramount. Naturally, wives have a new rival in the game of one-upwomanship.

(suveen.sinha@bsmail.in)