Libya's despot is proving difficult to dismiss at the stadium named after him.THE statues cast in gold in his image have been torn down in Tripoli and the paintings of his likeness defaced. But the name Muammar Gaddafi still stands proudly atop one monument Libya's rebels will find it difficult to lay their hands on.In 1974, a young Colonel Gaddafi, then only five years into his despotic rule of Libya, spoke at the second Islamic Summit Conference in Lahore, Pakistan. In a typically bellicose and lengthy address, he offered his support for Pakistan's controversial pursuit of nuclear weapons, describing the country as ''the Fort of Islam In the spirit of the bonhomie his speech inspired, Pakistan's then Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, renamed the Lahore Cricket Stadium the Muammar Gaddafi Cricket Stadium, despite the dictator's indifference to the game.Throughout Gaddafi's increasingly brutal career since, his name has stood.The morally delicate dilemma for the world's cricketers of walking out onto the Muammar Gaddafi Stadium ground is unlikely to arise any time soon. Pakistan hasn't hosted an international match since 2009, when the visiting Sri Lankan team was attacked by armed militants at a nearby roundabout.But regardless of cricket's future in Pakistan, there is a growing movement to have Gaddafi's name torn down from the largest stadium in the land."We have tolerated this ridiculous name now for about 37 years," Farooq Tirmizi wrote on the webpage of the Express Tribune newspaper."As we watch the scenes of horrific violence visited by the madman upon the Libyan people, let us at least do them the courtesy of removing their tormentor's name from our biggest stadium.Online, support is growing for the stadium to be renamed. One name suggested is that of Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar, this month named the International Cricket Council's umpire of the year for the third successive season.Others in Pakistan would like to see the ground renamed after the country's first cricket captain, Abdul Hafeez Kardar, while others still would like to see the return of the simple Lahore Cricket Ground.Writing in the influential Dawn newspaper, Saad Shafqat said there was no place for an memorial for Gaddafi."Lahore's great Test centre is no ordinary stadium. It is a travesty for it to carry the name that it does. It is the headquarters of the Pakistan Cricket Board, which makes it not just the spiritual but also the official home of Pakistan cricket.
