Army and cricket do not go together, Imran will find.

Former Pakistan cricketer Imran Khan's party won 115 out of 270 seats in parliament in elections held in Pakistan last month, not an absolute majority, but enough to form a government as the party with the largest number of seats. His victory has been contested by every other party as flawed, because of interference by the army. "He (Khan) is the army's man. He is expected to do what the Pakistani army tells him to do," said former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathy. "They will continue with the proxy war. They will continue to create disturbances in Jammu and Kashmir. I do not think there will be any improvement in the relationship between the two countries," said former Army Chief D Kapoor. Meanwhile, a high court judge in Pakistan claimed that judges are controlled by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). "Today, the judiciary and media have come in the control of "Bandookwala" (army). Judiciary is not independent. Even the media is getting directions from the military. The media is not speaking the truth because it is under pressure and has its interest." For the first time people are blaming the army openly in Pakistan. "No one used to blame ISI directly," said ZH Satti. "Not even the prime minister. But the army is losing popularity all over Pakistan, not only in Punjab." The reason for open criticism of the army maybe the economy. Pakistan desperately needs to raise $20 billion, including $12 billion from the International Monetary Fund, to meet its obligations. Pakistan has foreign exchange reserves of only around $9 billion. Its only friend China advanced a loan of $1 billion to tide over the crisis. This is dangerous for India as Pakistan is becoming a colony of China which wants to extend its hegemony all over the world. Yet, it was all so different when Imran Khan was Pakistan's cricket captain some 40 years back, wrote S Dhume. "At the time, Pakistanis drove better cars than Indians. Rumour had it that there stores sold real ketchup, not the tasteless pumpkin mush that we made do with in India." "In the 1950s and 1960s Pakistan enjoyed robust economic growth and Western accolades" and "South Korean experts would visit Islamabad to learn about development". What we must learn from Pakistan is that "in the journey of a country one or two good decades mean very little". On the one hand, the world should engage with a civilian government, on the other, that will legitimize an election doctored by the military, wrote M Sharma. It is our bad luck to have such terrible neighbors. We have stopped playing cricket with them. May they live in interesting times.