Something very strange went on in the world cup cricket matches. The Pakistani team played so erratically that such erraticism could not possibly be predicted even by ‘game theory’ (whatever that might be). The performance reminded me of the nursery rhyme, “There was a little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead; when she was good, she was very, very good, when she was bad, she was horrid.” Of course, when you say horrid you have to stamp your foot down very hard. Here, I must as a serious conspiracy theorist go out on a foot (or is it a limb?) to explain how this could possibly be. No, I will not blame the puncture fixer upper for this debacle of momentous proportions. It all started badly when some of Pakistan’s better players were disqualified even before the contest started but that was a minor conspiracy compared to what happened once the matches started. The Pakistan team eventually, it seemed, almost got their act together before falling apart. The minor conspiracy theorist blames as always the bookies for the inevitable debacle. The self-styled major conspiracy theorist blames the puncture fixer upper and the pro-India ‘traitors’ in the cricket establishment. But only a person of my deep dark paranoid brilliance can decipher what really went on. Let me ask my readers a simple question: if Misbah and his boys actually won this world cup, what important Pakistani politician would overnight have become the laughing stock in Pakistani politics? And, indeed, as the Pakistan team went in to face the Australian team in the quarters, some morbidly optimistic cricket fans in Pakistan actually started believing that the team could go all the way. However, the powers that be had to nip any such possibility in the proverbial bud. The powers that be have a blue-eyed boy (or is it sadly now a ‘dyed’ haired man?) who, if Misbah and his boys had won, would have gone down in public reckoning like a falling star. Already in the run up to the Cricket World Cup questions were being asked in the Pakistani press about whether Misbah as captain of the Pakistan cricket team was “better” than the aforementioned dyed hair man (DHM). If Misbah and his boys went on to win the entire shebang then the only genuine achievement that the DHM claimed, and upon which rested his fame and subsequent political and financial fortune, would literally have come to the proverbial naught. There are ‘powers’ in Pakistan that have invested some real political capital in the DHM’s future that could not let that happen. Why such investment in the DHM you might ask, but the answer is obvious. The DHM is a political ‘tabula rasa’ upon whom the masters of the Pakistani universe (MPUs) can and will continue to write whatever they wish. So, if Misbah and his boys had won the world cup, the MPUs would have had to go into a blue, or should we call it a khaki funk? All of their investment of time, money and political capital in the aging star would have come to naught (sorry for a cricket term but it is entirely appropriate in this context). Obviously, then the MPUs could not let Misbah dethrone the DHM as a Pakistani hero. Also, any funk, blue or khaki by the MPUs has in the past resulted in serious consequences for Pakistan. So, we in Pakistan must with some sorrow but much relief accept the ignominy of what happened. The MPUs are relieved, the DHM can continue to claim greatness and other ‘stars’ on the political firmament in Pakistan can remain persistently peeved, and appropriately so. The big question that enquiring minds must ask is whether the DHM is really what the MPUs have bet the kitchen sink on. Well, those of us who have some undyed grey hair on our heads might remember how and by whom the DHM was launched in a past that is rapidly receding into oblivion. Frankly, even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mian sahib the elder did not receive support from the MPUs for as long as the DHM has. I could venture to say that the DHM was not a DHM when it all started. But then, in spite of the hair greying days that the once not so DHM has lurked around with little recognition from the people, he has now for reasons alluded to above become the next best thing in Pakistan after phajja’s payas. Frankly, all the patriotic Pakistanis that once went totally ape over Mian sahib the elder and then for entirely similar reasons over Musharraf ‘the saviour’ are now all for the DHM. Interestingly, among these three, the DHM is the youngest (Allah be praised!). For the rather myopic, foreseeable future, the DHM is the choice of the MPUs. The foreseeable future though is rapidly running out for the DHM. Of course, blackened hair on top of a wisened face does seem as incongruous as the white part in a Pakistani flag. Back to reality: if Misbah and his boys had really won, the DHM and his political future would be toast. So the Pakistan team led by Misbah had to lose. The puncture fixer upper or the bookies could not assure the needed result but only, and I repeat only, the MPUs could do it. And therein lies the conspiracy theory that explains the erratic and ultimately losing campaign by Misbah and his boys. Could Misbah and his boys have kept going on? Nah. Based upon Pakistani realities, if the team had won, any and all those responsible for such victory would have had to apply for political asylum in either Australia or New Zeeland or even in Papua New Guinea, not just for themselves but also for their extended families. This by the way was a conspiracy of such deviousness that in all likelihood even the DHM had no inkling about it. Plausible deniability? Allah knows best. The author is a former editor of the Journal of Association of Pakistani descent Physicians of North America (APPNA)