Friday, August 17, 2001 "You [the media] sort out one issue with me today: do you want to build the team or do you want to take it down? The choice is yours." Strange that the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) thinks the media has more influence over the national team than he does. But that was not the end of Lieutenant General Tauqir Zia's extraordinary attack on Pakistani journalists during a recent briefing in Karachi.

Zia was on a war footing: "I want to know what your problems are with the establishment, players, selectors? I have been observing for the last year and a half that whenever a tournament or series is round the corner, controversies start." His observations had been fuelled when the Pakistan manager Yawar Saeed handed him a file of press cuttings. As Zia ranted, key officials in the PCB looked on. There is a distinct impression that Zia means well but is badly advised - it is difficult to imagine how these bullying tactics could ever be deemed worthy of the head of any organisation.

Naturally, Pakistan's journalists were agog at this outburst. Zia's statement arises from a grave misunderstanding of the function of the media, and is doubly regrettable since the man who appointed him, Pakistan's self-appointed president General Pervez Musharaf, says he supports a free press.

The media is not responsible for building up the team - Zia is. Journalism should not be about massaging the egos of the bigwigs at the PCB but about commenting critically on the policies of the board and the performance of the team. Journalists have a responsibility to their readers not to the establishment, players or selectors. It is particularly rich to accuse the media of stirring trouble when the PCB is so skilful at making bad decisions. The other aspect that Zia would do well to remember is that it is his own officials and players who regularly leak "controversial" stories to Pakistan's grateful media.

Zia's tirade ended with a statement he will surely regret. "No matter how much you criticise me or the PCB," he fumed, "I don't care. At least my education is more than you all, while my style of working and knowledge of the game is at least more than a million times [better] than you, barring a couple." You can almost hear press knives being sharpened.

Let's face it, the PCB does itself few favours. Take the recent obsession with mind games. They have decided that Pakistan's players do not need a coach to refine technique but a Mr Motivator. The galactic brains at the PCB have overlooked the simple point that they need to first explain why international players need motivating.

Moving at speed Pakistan have appointed a psychologist. There is little to suggest that psychotherapy has any benefit on team performance, and it is not clear what experience Dr Aamer Siddique has in this field. If that wasn't a shaky enough basis for the whole exercise, the PCB has given him the laughable title of "Thought Leader and Team Counsellor."

Amateur psychology will likely do more harm than good. Lieutenant General Tauqir Zia should also rethink his own ill-judged mind games and if he is badly advised perhaps he might try thinking for himself.

Born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, Kamran Abbasi is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal

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