“I’ll be back.”
10 years back if you had asked me what this line reminded me of, my answer would have been, of course, ‘Terminator’. These lines were immortalized by Arnold while putting in an effortless performance as a Cyborg – an Oscar worthy rendition (It was later that we realized that he looked and sounded like a Cyborg in all his movies). But that’s not the case anymore.
Apparently the word ‘Retirement’ translates to ‘I’ll be back’ in Pakistan. Or at least it has started to in the last 5 years or so. We don’t even need to go very far. The yo-yo of the Yo-Yo, Younis and Yousuf, had us suffering from motion sickness. It was hard to tell at any particular moment which one of the two was retired and which one was still playing. Even the PCB was clueless. Now thankfully they both have retired. Or have they? Dammit!
But that was not to be the end of this. The legacy of the Yo-Yo has not been wasted. In fact it has been taken to a whole new level altogether by who else but Boom Boom. Shahid Afridi has revolutionized the whole concept of retirement. After just one match in charge of the Pakistani Test team he realized how hard it is to make 10 Pakistanis play proper cricket over 5 days. So he did not just quit as the captain but also retired from the Tests. I think his family protested this decision, yeah, but that’s about it.
Boom Boom also had been the victim of PCB’s captaincy policy, which basically is ‘since no one else is taking this responsibility let’s give it to this chap’, time and again. Turned out Afridi realized he was not a Butt man. He has issues with Waqar which led to issues with the Big Butt and he retired in a huff. From ODIs and T20s. He had quit from Tests already remember? No? Yes it is hard to keep track.
However, the winds of change revolved the doors and the Big Butt is now out of PCB. No sooner was the Big Butt out of the door, Boom Boom was banging on it to be let in. He withdrew his retirement from ODIs and T20s. Though he is still retired from Tests, I believe. Yes, I think that sounds right.
So Boom Boom is back. “Hasta la vista, Retirement!”