How about this?
Batting for Allah - how a cricket team finds its sporting inspiration
Fri, Aug 25, 2006, 01:00
It may have happened almost a year ago, but Pakistan's cricket circles still buzz with talk of star batsman Yousuf Youhana's conversion from Christianity to Islam. At least they did until the ball tampering row erupted last week.
Youhana's decision to abandon Christianity, embrace Islam, and take the name Mohammad Yousuf last September caused a sensation among players and fans.
"Youhana's conversion will strengthen the religious zeal in the team," declared his team-mate Shahid Afridi.
"I have seen many a good innings of Yousuf, but this [ conversion] is the greatest of all," another player, Abdul Razzaq, told reporters.
But while his fellow players congratulated him, others, including his family, reacted less positively.
"I don't want to give Yousuf my name after what he has done," his mother told a national newspaper. "We came to know about his decision when he offered Friday prayers at a local mosque. It was a shock." Commentators, meanwhile, speculated on whether peer pressure or ambition had played a part in the conversion.
The furore reached such a pitch that the Pakistan Cricket Board felt compelled to issue a statement saying "no religious-oriented pressure or influence was brought to bear on him by current or former players".
Yousuf gave interviews in which he flatly dismissed speculation that he had converted to improve his chances of becoming captain.
He had converted of his own free will, he insisted, after attending regular sermons held by Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic missionary movement which counts among its members Yousuf's former team-mate, Saeed Anwar.
Declaring Islam "the ultimate religion", Yousuf said: "I have accepted Islam as my religion because I believe in its divinity and truth. My conversion is a conversion of the heart and not a calculated and ambitious move as some media allege."
Still the rumours continue, some negative, others positive. One claimed a preacher had told him before his conversion that he was the only thing standing between God and his team. Some cricket observers have even pondered on whether Yousuf's improved batting score has something to do with his conversion.
It's a long way from the days when Pakistan's national cricket players were known as much for their drinking and womanising as their performance on the field.
In 1993 four Pakistani cricketers were pilloried for "poor moral behaviour" while on tour in the West Indies.
Today, the team arranges training sessions around prayer times and engages in pre-match exhortations to Allah. Ramadan - the Muslim month of fasting - is strictly observed and players pepper interviews with "Bismillah" ("In the name of Allah") or "Inshallah" ("God willing").
Success on the field is cele- brated by performing sajda (prostration).
Batsman Salman Butt was frank when asked about the team's growing religious observance. "We are Muslims and we believe in Allah. We do whatever Islam says and we try to be what we are supposed to be. Religion is the complete code of life and we follow its guiding principles."
Much of the team's overt religiosity is attributed to former opening batsman Saeed Anwar, who turned to religion following the death of his three-year-old daughter. He grew a long beard and quit playing soon after.
Now Anwar and his brother are heavily involved in Tablighi Jamaat and frequently travel throughout Pakistan to address Tablighi congregations. He once told an audience that he regretted his cricket career had not also been dedicated to Islam.
Tablighi members regularly visit the Pakistan Cricket Board offices and training grounds, with Anwar boasting that several players, including Shahid Afridi, Mushtaq Ahmed, Inzamam ul Haq and Saqlain Mushtaq have joined the missionary movement because of his influence.
Pakistan's coach Bob Woolmer, a former England Test player who describes himself as "not very religious", has admitted to mixed feelings about his team's increasing devotion to their faith.
"It has created a terrific discipline in the side, and I am very happy about that," he said in an interview last year.
"Everyone understands that in the dressing room it is cricket first. There is a very serene atmosphere and one of discipline.
"But there is the odd problem. You have to train the players with less intensity during Ramadan, or do it at a time of day when they have more strength.
"In some respects that can be frustrating as a coach, if you are trying to prepare for something like an important Test series."
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/bat...team-finds-its-sporting-inspiration-1.1042618
