Pakistan opener Imam-ul-Haq has shared how constant taunts of nepotism affected him, especially during the initial years of his international career. He said the period as mental torture, as his parents could not watch him play as well. He shared that at many places he would go, he would be referred to as “parchi” (a word that means a chit of paper and hints at nepotism) as well.
On Daniyal Sheikh’s podcast, Imam-ul-Haq revealed, “When I used to go out to dinner with my family, they would come up and call me parchi in front of my parents. I would be sitting at Nando’s with my family, and there would be young students quipping ‘look, the parchi is sitting there’. That was when I would feel the worst.”
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“My parents want to watch me play, but they have not seen me play at a venue even once. Even I don’t want them to. I don’t want my mother hear someone utter parchi when I am fielding on the boundary. All this is normal to me. Whenever I am dismissed cheaply, they will not look at what I have achieved in my past but simply utter parchi. I do not want my family to be exposed to that,” the batter further added.
However, Imam-ul-Haq also added that the first time his sister watched him play was as recently as 2022 as well. He scored 61 off 94 as Pakistan beat Afghanistan by 142 runs in the first game as well. He has played for Pakistan in 22 Tests, 60 ODIs and two T20Is. He has scored 1474 runs in Tests which came at an average of 38.78, with three hundreds and eight fifties as well. In ODIs, he has amassed 2780 runs at an impressive average of 51.48, with nine tons and 17 fifties, and hit 21 runs at an average of 10.50 in two T20Is as well.
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“The first time my sister watched me play was in 2022, when both West Indies (ODIs) and England (a Test match) played at Multan. By then, I was a senior member of the side. The fact that my family could not attend the matches was a mental torture for me,” Imam-ul-Haq concluded.
