Retirements, unretirements and politics: From Jordan to Tamim

A captain, loved by legions of fans in his country, retires from international cricket after serving the national team for 16 years. His countrymen and board officials plead him to return to international cricket and lead the country once again, but he doesn’t budge from his stance. But after the country’s leading figure requests him to return, he obliges. He revokes his retirement and once again returns as the captain.

The player I’m talking about is of course the great Pakistan all-rounder Imran Khan.

What, you thought I was talking about someone else?

The former Pakistan captain had left the sport after the 1987 World Cup, ending a sensational international career which saw him rise to the pinnacle of cricket. His fans and the Pakistan Cricket Board wanted him to return but an injury-ladden Imran had already made up his mind. He was done with cricket.

But when Pakistan’s president Zia-ul Haq requested him to reconsider his retirement, Imran laced up his boots one more time and started his second spell in international cricket, which proved to be his legacy-defining one.

The events between Imran’s departure and momentous return happened across the span of a year. He left cricket in 1987 and returned in 1988 at the age of 36.

But fans of Bangladesh cricket went through those same waves of emotions in around 28 hours.

The ODI captain Tamim Iqbal announced his retirement from international cricket on 6 July, sending shockwaves through Bangladesh cricket.

Tamim’s teary-eyed goodbye touched the hearts of millions. The fans started reminiscing about his storied international career, replaying his countless cover drives, slashes through the off-side and outrageous charges down the wicket against fast bowlers in their minds and posting heartfelt tributes on social media.

Everyone also started analysing the reason behind his shock retirement. Was it the scathing comments of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan on Tamim’s insistence to play the first ODI to assess his fitness, was it his aching body which was showing the effects of his lengthy international career, was it his poor form, his insecurity about his position in the team as captain or was it an amalgamation of all of those things.

However, before the blame game could heat up and new theories could emerge, the very next day the news of Tamim getting invited to the Ganabhaban by prime minister Sheikh Hasina came out.

Tamim arrived at Ganabhaban to meet the PM, and so did BCB president Nazmul Hassan and former captain Masharfe Bin Mortaza. The country looked on with anticipation to see what happens next.

The smiling faces of Tamim, Mashrafe and Nazmul as they left the Ganabhaban premises told the tale. The dark clouds had cleared, Tamim had withdrawn his retirement and will return to international cricket with the Asia Cup.

On the surface, it seems that the two-day drama ended on a positive note with Tamim once again returning at the helm. The board was also relieved as it didn’t have to search for another captain with just three months to go before the World Cup.

The cynics, however, would say that the entire fiasco has just set a bad precedent in Bangladesh cricket and in future, history could very well repeat itself.

But a look at sports history across the world would show that players retiring and then unretiring is not anything new and neither is sports getting mixed up with politics.

The most famous case of retiring and then unretiring in sports belongs to Argentine maestro Lionel Messi. Messi, heartbroken by three consecutive defeats in the final for Argentina, announced his retirement from the Albiceleste in 2016.

But less than three months after bidding adieu to international football, Messi withdrew his retirement. And what happened next, as they say, is history.

From South America, if you head towards North America, there are a couple of big examples of iconic sportsperson retiring and then unretiring.

Michael Jordan, who is considered by many as the greatest basketball player of all time, announced his retirement from the game in 1993 at just 30 years of age.

The basketball world was dumbfounded by the announcement. Their astonishment compounded when they learnt that their biggest star will now try his hand at baseball.

But after playing Minor League Baseball for two seasons, Jordan made a triumphant comeback to basketball in 1995 and won a hat-trick of NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls.

More recently, legendary American football player Tom Brady did a similar swerve. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback announced his retirement in last year’s February.

Tributes poured in from every corner for Brady, congratulating him on his 22-year-long career. The ball he threw in his last game was auctioned off for a whopping $518,000 in March.

But just 40 days later, the NFL quarterback withdrew his retirement and came back for one final season.

In cricket, no one has retired and the unretired more times than Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi. The maverick all-rounder has retired and unretired four times before finally calling time on his international career in 2018 with his fifth retirement.

At down under, former Australia captain Bob Simpson has the most notable case of ‘unretirement’. Simpson retired from the game in 1968 after a successful international career.

But after most of Australia’s first-choice cricketers went to play in the breakaway Karry Packer World Series, Simpson returned to international cricket in 1977 at the age of 41 to once again lead the Aussies.

All of these ‘unretirements’ in cricket and other sports have happened under different circumstances. But in cricket, the only other notable instance of a cricketer coming out of retirement upon the country’s premier’s insistence is from Pakistan.

Javed Miandad announced his retirement in 1994 out of spite after being dropped from the Pakistan side. But just 10 days later he revoked his retirement upon the request of prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The incidents of Imran and Miandad happened in the last century. One doesn’t have to go so far back to see politics intertwining with cricket.

Just last week, the prime ministers of England and Australia engaged in a back-and-forth exchange over the controversial stumping of England wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow in the second Ashes Test at the Lord’s.

Tamim’s retirement saga in a way is the continuation of the unholy mix of politics and sports. The entire drama only reinstated the two unwritten rules of international sports-

• Sports and politics should never mix

• Still, sports and politics always mix