THOSE who donot know Fawad Naeem Rana personally will not be able to fathom that the very popular owner of Pakistan Super League franchise Lahore Qalandars is an individual with tremendous love for sports with cricket very close to his heart.

Fawad — often referred to as Rana Fawad in the cricketing circles but famously renowned for his unstoppable verbal rendering of Lahore team catchphrase ‘Dama Dam Mast Qalandar’ — is the managing director of Qatar Lubricants Company Limited that bought the Lahore franchise in December 2015 at the cost of $24 million for a 10-year period, which then was the second-most expensive PSL team after Karachi Kings ($26 million).

The first thing Fawad revealed was the second name Qalandars for the Lahore team was chosen by his mother.

“I was confused when it came to deciding what the Lahore franchise should be called. The names suggested were many. One said ‘Lahore Sherdils’, another plumbed for ‘Lahore Lions’ but ultimately my mother insisted that it should be Lahore Qalandars only. And because I have tremendous respects and profound love for my mother, I finalized this name for the franchise,” he recalled.

“It is small tribute to all mothers because they are the utmost self-effacing creation on the earth. To me personally, nomenclatures such as Daredevils, Thunders, Sixers, Outlaws, Cobras or Volts etc do not give cricket its due representation because it is a beautiful sport.

“Qalandar is a spiritual name which is generally about being self-sacrificing and generous. We shouldn’t forget our mothers have given Pakistan thousands and thousands of wonderful people in every sphere of life and I were to name the cricketers then the list would be endless. So this is purely dedicated to my mother, your mother and all the mothers,” he emphasized with a broad smile.

Despite boasting big names, the franchise finished at the bottom of the pile in the first two editions when five teams competed. This time, though, it was generally assumed that Lahore would put up a better performance but it was not to be.

Now consigned to play for pride than anything else in their remaining two fixtures after getting knocked out of the playoff race for third season in a row, Qalandars are in a quandary. But to his credit, Fawad isn’t disheartened by what has transpired over the past three weeks of the competition, both in Dubai and Sharjah.

Lahore lost six games to begin with in this edition before making a belated comeback by winning — against Multan and Karachi — and giving Fawad something to cheer about.

“Obviously, you may say that I’m upset or something like that because of the defeats Lahore faced in those matches. But winning always make you happy even though we are no longer competing for the playoffs, I do celebrate with zeal and dynamism when my Lahore team wins,” Fawad told Dawn in an exclusive interview at the team’s hotel in downtown Dubai the other day.

When asked to explain the causes behind Lahore’s disastrous run of poor results, Fawad refused to point a finger at anyone and termed it as sheer bad luck.

“In fact, I tell you a story. When we bought the team I wanted Azhar Ali [then leading the ODI side] to be our captain because being the Pakistan skipper I felt pride in bringing him in the role. But, unfortunately, he couldn’t deliver and we ended up last. Then I went to meet Shaharyar Mohammad Khan, who was PCB chairman at the time, and asked him straightaway ‘sir, do we have the talent ’. He responded by questioning me: ‘what are you talking about’ and said Pakistan is blessed with abundance of cricket talent. I then asked him why do have to wait for five or six years for an exceptional player to emerge on the horizon. Shaharyar sahib couldn’t come up with an appropriate answer to satisfy me,” said Fawad.

Before that I was asked on a TV interview why I get extremely emotional and start crying whenever Lahore lose? To tell you the truth I am very passionate about the game and decided that something had to be done to bring the youth of our region together.

“As you know we started the development program to unearth the cricketing talent across Punjab and extended it further to Layyah and Azad Kashmir. Not only this, we offered incentives by sending a few of the very talented players to Australia where played club cricket and also received advanced coaching.

“In the first year [2016] we went to eight districts from where 113,000 young cricketers came to try their luck and after conducting trials we shortlisted them. Not only that we went to far-flung areas to clean up the grounds and uplifted them and built academies for the young kids to develop love for the game.

“And then after meeting several known names of Pakistan cricket, we decided to bring in [former player and coach] Aaqib Javed, who I must say is a very dedicated and sincere man. Furthermore, we approached the ICC to release Mudassar Nazar, who was based at the ICC Global Academy. But the PCB then requested us that they wanted him to head the NCA.

“We made Aaqib our team director and head coach. Believe me, I’m amazed by his work ethics and the efforts he’s putting in to make Lahore a competitive unit. The results may suggest a depressing story but I have complete faith in the team management we have got at the moment.

“Even when Brendon McCullum offered to resign as captain, I told him there’s no way I want him to quit just because the team is losing constantly.

“My philosophy is not to be disrespectable to anyone and that’s why the entire team has great regard for Umar Akmal [who had grossly underperformed with just a meagre return of 57 runs] who was left out from the last two matches. And by asking a Pakistan player to be in the squad of 15 during a game is something I won’t encourage.

“Umar may not have had a great tournament but I still believe that we must respect him and the best way is to do is let him stay at the hotel rather ask him to sit on the bench as reserve player. His family is also here and I feel he deserves some privacy,” Fawad concluded.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2018