Opinion His second innings

Should Mohammad Amir be sent back to purgatory? Is booing the most suitable reaction of a civilised society to a youngster trying to redeem himself after doing time in the young offenders institute? As a temporary outlet to anger and angst against a player who was shown as greedy and corruptible, booing seems understandable. But surely the case against Amir, and the way it played out, allows sports lovers to look at the bigger picture, react in a more gracious and generous way. Amir is a youngster who has served out his punishment and cleaned up his act, and most importantly, helped in nailing the chief conspirators along the way.

A moral shutdown against him is not the answer. Instead, he should be encouraged in his second innings. If sport doesn’t allow second chances to the genuinely remorseful, then that’s a sad state of affairs. There are quite a few former players, whom many in the fraternity strongly suspect of graver illdoing in the past, who now ply their trade as commentators and coaches. Not one of them has publicly accepted his misdemeanour, shown remorse. That should rankle, not a youngster who has admitted culpability and done his bit to clean up the game.

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However, this isn’t a statement on the reactions of English cricketers ranging from Kevin Pietersen to Graeme Swann who have stated that Amir shouldn’t have been allowed to come back. Pietersen has talked about how empty the final day of cricket at that ill-fated game was, when the players trooped out to finish the game amid a sense of emptiness. To be sure, that soul-searing feeling would be hard to forget. Their resistance and even deep-rooted anger is understandable. For outsiders, it’s a game we watch, play for joy. For those who play it for a living, it’s much more than that. Yet, hopefully, with the passing of time, they too would see that Amir’s comeback is part of a healing process for the sport itself.