"You say tomato a la American way and I say tomaato the English way?"

"Ah I see, we are all pro-England again after the resignation of Ian Watmore, the English and Wales Cricket Board chairman who cancelled the Pakistan tour - a decision need I add that was denigrated by their prime minister, their foreign office, their cricket players..."

"These English people have no resilience I say."

"Excuse me?"

"Our cricket board chairmen have resisted resigning even when their judgement calls were denigrated by the cricket team members, by the general public, by the commentators, by the..."

"You being facetious?"

"No, I mean The Man Who Shall Remain Nameless blamed sustained poor performance of our team on our mediocre players, Maani the Jaani of The Khan knew more about cricket than his predecessor but was unable to translate it into better performance of the team, and neither of the men resigned till the Patron of the Cricket Team, the Prime Minister gave the signal..."

"You have to give full marks to our prime ministers for their resilience - I mean in spite of appalling performance Nawaz Sharif did not change the Man Who Shall Remain Nameless and Maani too completed his tenure before he was allowed to resign and was replaced..."

"Hmmm, so you reckon if Watmore was Chair of the Pakistan Cricket team he would not have resigned?"

"I reckon The Khan would have allowed him to complete his tenure - see resilience..."

"Stop, The Khan has shown no such resilience with...with..."

"He has, he changes the portfolio he doesn't allow the man to leave the cabinet....except Asad Umer and he is back as the deputy so there you go."

"The Khan likes continuity..."

"They, and by they, I mean all three leaders of the three national parties, all like continuity - continuity in government but what they don't know is that even dictators are forced to leave government...be it through the front door or through the back door..."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Just what I said yesterday: please Khan sahib legislate as if you are in the opposition not in government and that way lies institutional building."

"You don't understand that those dratted opposition leaders..."

"Oh dear - we are back on the merry go round."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021