"This is a bucket of shit. If someone throws shit at us, we throw shit back at them. We start a shit fight. We throw so much shit back at them so they can't pick up shit, they can't throw shit, they can't DO shit." - Glenn Cullen, 'Thick of It' Series 1 Episode 2.
There's an old saying about biting the hand that feeds you and a general consensus that it's not the brightest thing to do. Biting the hand that not only feeds you, but gives you somewhere to play test matches after an unruly crowd of terrorists forced you out of your homeland borders on insane.
Now, I may be a blogging novice but even I know that blogging about cricket is shaky ground. While if you talk about football, all you need is a Sky Sports subscription and a spellcheck to look like the Oracle, you can guarantee with cricket that there's always someone who knows rather more to shoot you and your ranting down.
But this is a thinly-veiled PR blog, not a sports one. So here goes.
You'll know the story by now. British tabloid catches dodgy businessman making promises that he can 'arrange' for Pakistan players in the Fourth Test at Lord's (which I was at) to bowl no balls with the aim of making mega bucks stinging illegal bookies in the sub-continent. The promised no balls come right on schedule. Newspaper publishes scandal in inky Technicolor. All hell breaks loose.
Innocent until proven guilty, of course. But as George had it in Blackadder, certain Pakistan players look as guilty as a puppy sitting next to a pile of poo.
Now, one of the early comments made in slightly throwaway fashion by BBC cricket guru Jonathan Agnew in one of his Five Live pieces that caught my ear was that the Pakistan touring side had no media management staff with them at a time when they were suddenly cast into the glare of the world's mainstream media. Consequently, in the hours, days and, subsequently, weeks that have followed a shitstorm of spells of silence punctuated by finger-pointing, a drip-drip of allegations, counter allegation, thinly-veiled allegations and more fingerpointing have ensued.
So, the ICC waded in and the never conquering anti-corruption unit cranked itself from its slumber. Meanwhile, somewhat predictably, the world's media have managed to get at certain characters linked to the game, talked them into saying something controversial and then syndicated their comments worldwide to a voyeuristic public. Ultimately, the whole thing got rather messy.
To suggest that the Pakistan Cricket Board have no media representation at all is not quite right. Nadeem Sarwar, the PCB media-manager-cum-general-dogsbody has done his best in fighting the fires over recent weeks from his homeland. And, you'd have to say, other than being the Pope's PR man, there's no less enviable job in the industry right now.
But it all took a huge turn for the worse, at the weekend. Pakistan cricket, an absolute basket case at the best of times, has REALLY gone and done it.
When it emerged yesterday that Sarwar's boss, Ijaz Butt, the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, had decided the time was right for him to make a foray into the media, you could well imagine the poor PR fella holding his head in his hands. While he's sought to backtrack on his comments a little bit today (perhaps at Sarwar's insistence) he's basically accused the whole world of being against Pakistani cricket, that England's players threw the third ODI on Friday and that it's all one big conspiracy. I strongly suspect if he'd had chance he'd have accused Graeme Swann of being responsible for the death of Princess Di.
That he made these comments to the broadcast media back home, thinking they'd be reported favourably and that in this age of news wires and 24-hour sports news is, at best, naive. I'd describe it rather more unkindly as outrageously stupid. It makes you wonder who on earth appointed this guy (actually, I know this. It was the President of Pakistan who, to his credit, perhaps doesn't want a David Cameron-style international faux pas on his record so is keeping quiet).
Put this against the context that England went out of their way to accommodate the nomadic Pakistan side who are prevented from playing home internationals due to security concerns. The England Cricket Board is, quite rightly, seething at these comments (as should the Pakistan players, for that matter, given that Butt is basically saying they didn't earn what was an excellent win) and they'll certainly not be taking in their feral peers again.
Spot-fixing allegations aside, this one should (and probably will) be used as a case study of how NOT to conduct a crisis management campaign. A simple statement, promising full co-operation, removal of the players accused from the firing line, a single credible point of contact for the media to avoid unnecessary speculation by the media and tighter message management of those in the PCB camp. Basics which would have made this whole ungainly affair rather less tangled and give Pakistan at least a fighting chance of cleaning itself up in the years to come.
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