The Pakistan Super League (PSL) is coming to an end. All Pakistanis who are in love with Afridi and cricket, have enjoyed all the matches and supported their favorite players and teams. People got a topic, in a country like ours, other than terrorism and bullets to talk about and we all felt a sigh of relief. This is what Pakistanis very rarely get.

But at the end of the day, as happens with so many other things in this land of pure, things are getting from bad to worse. Cricket, like religion, has been politicized. Talk shows these days are focusing on only one thing in Pakistan: PSL final and Imran Khan’s statement to declare the government’s decision to hold the match as “madness”.  Not only are the politicians at different pages, the common people in Pakistan are also confused like Shakespeare’s Hamlet – to go or not to go.

Imran talks about security and law and order situation in the country, and government talks about the passion of the people and a better image of Pakistan. Imran thinks we will make things even worse and probably the consequences of the decision will never be undone. The government believes things will get better and international cricket will be back in Pakistan.

The government is more confident for one very obvious reason, which is that they have heroes with them to host the match. It gives them both confidence and political leverage. This is what Nawaz wants the most and gets so rarely: a green signal from heroes. This time he has it.

The question is, why the wise Imran issued an unwise statement?

Imran is naïve and can’t understand what Nawaz and heroes can. He believes in self-assumed facts and follies. For Imran, attacks in Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, and Sehwan Sharif were to prevent the PSL final in Lahore. And he is absolutely wrong.

These attacks were a part of bigger scheme of those who carried them out. They created an unexpected political environment in which both international and national actors came forward to purse their personal as well as institutional interests.

By associating those attacks with PSL we’re doing what terrorists and their facilitators want us to believe. PSL was not in their intended target, rather ‘other’ things which took place after those attacks were their prime agenda. What are those ‘other’ developments by the way? All sane Pakistanis should know them.

And there is a reason behind government’s madness. International cricket may not come back to Pakistan after this match, but Nawaz and company will definitely win the hearts of the wounded folks. Security institutions will come out as successful event managers and the heroes will get more respect and say in national affairs, which is already although not so insignificant.

But the question is what’s wrong with all this?

There probably isn't anything right here.

We all know when religion was politicized what happened. We are still paying the heaviest price. We have lost almost everything except our politicians and heroes.

They say cricket is like religion for us. This explains why it’s being politicized as well. Masses are being fooled, terrified, and divided for myopic political interests.

We know government will surely be able to host the match in collaboration with the heroes. Imran will be bashed then.

But the point is whatever government decides or does it should remember one thing; cricket is a game. And a game should be just that – a game. Politics is, in our age, so dirty. Don’t politicize cricket!