Why do Pakistanis get so emotional about cricket?

It's happening again. Today is the Asia Cup Cricket final between arch rivals India and Pakistan. Even though Pakistan is a much weaker team than India (it has already lost two matches to it), TV channels are showing children, men and women confidently predicting that Pakistan will win (it'll be a miracle if it does). But just think of this: the people who are so confident are mostly those who've never played the game. In fact, burqa clad women, heavily bearded old men, school girls and children are the so-called "experts" interviewed by the media. I doubt if they even know how to spell cricket, yet they solemnly assert that our team will emerge as the champions. Naturally, I hope their prediction turns out to be true, but what if it does? Will it mean that we have won a war and India will allow us to walk into Kashmir?

If our team wins, our media will have nothing to talk about for the next few days. Again, experts will give their views on why we won. The same children, men and women will claim that they're the ones who should be thanked for our victory. 

Asia Cup cricket handshake controversy

I've often wondered why Hindutva BJP Indian leaders are such cry babies. In every election, they've used anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim slogans to win elections. After their humiliating defeat in the 4-day war in May this year, they've gone paranoid, since no country in the world accepted their stance that Pakistan was to blame for terrorism in their country. Now their hatred for Pakistan has spilled over into cricket, which is a gentleman's game. 

It's mandatory for captains of both the teams to shake hands before starting the game, and members of both teams also shake hands with each other after the match has ended. In last Sunday's match, the Indian team refused to do so. It turned out that instructions to refuse the handshake came from the top leadership. In their media, even some Indians are questioning why this happened. But the Indian fundamentalist government wants to show their benighted followers that they are on morally high ground where Muslims are concerned. I doubt that the voters will be fooled in the next elections, but of course there is the possibility that Modi will arrange rigging of elections again to win.

Shoaib's smack

Published in The Friday Times on September 21-27, 2007 

Sir,

Why is so much fuss being made over Shoab Akbar's swipe at Asif? After all, Shoaib is just a boy(only 32), and you should not deprive him of these small pleasures. In fact, he should be allowed to get away with a couple of murders as well. These things happen in the great game of cricket. You can't be a good bowler if people get upset when you hit another cricketer with your bat. What are bats for if you can't use them for striking people? I think we should let him loosen up whenever he wants to. The best way to relax is to see one of your teammates double up in pain after you have hit him with your bat. 

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi 

Sri Lanka's well deserved win

It's happened so many times. Whenever the national team plays a match (especially against India), fans go berserk. Girls who've never held a cricket bat or ball are shown on TV saying confidently that Pakistan will win. Heavily bearded men who've never played cricket except with a tennis ball give their opinions on which players should be selected. It does get sickening.

This time, Pakistan managed to reach the finals after narrowly beating Afghanistan and India. When Afghanistan lost against Pakistan, their supporters lost their heads and caused a lot of damage to the Sharjah stadium. About four hundred of them were fined heavily, with some even being deported. But when Pakistan lost to Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup there was jubilation amongst Afghan nationals living in Karachi. 

But I digress. Pakistanis (most of whom were confident their team would win) did not react so emotionally. But they did comment on the outcome of the match, as if they're seasoned cricketers. Some criticized the captain Babar Awan who did not score much in the whole tournament. Others talked of kicking out Fakhar Zaman, another batsman who failed to perform. But none praised the professionalism of the Sri Lankans, who looked beaten when they had lost five wickets for only 58, but then managed to regain and finished with a good score. Their fielding was superb, compared to that of Pakistan's team, who failed by missing many catches. 

I hope the Pakistan team management learns a lesson from the lost match, which their team could have won without effort.

 

Cancelled NZ cricket tour proves Pakistan's unpopularity

The only surprising thing about the New Zealand Cricket team suddenly cancelling the tour (just an hour before the first match started) is that they came to Pakistan in the first place. After the Taliban's violent take-over of Afghanistan and the resounding support they got from Imran Khan, any sane person would have hesitated before even thinking of coming to this country. And as if that wasn't enough, the news of seven soldiers being killed in Waziristan as well as photos of the armed Mullah Abdul Aziz preventing policemen from pulling down the Taliban flag from the roof of his mosque should have been enough to make all foreigners in Islamabad dash out of Pakistan.

But of course our ministers (like Shaikh Rasheed) refuse to accept responsibility for this debacle. It was one of the top police officers in Islamabad who warned other departments of possible terrorist activities targeting the New Zealand cricket team. Perhaps this memo found its way to the concerned cricket officials who decided to abruptly call off the tour. 

But the government is least bothered. Instead of taking appropriate action to find out what really happened, its ministers are content to blame the whole thing on enemies of Pakistan (particularly India).

Ironically, just a couple of days back, the powerless president of the country (whom I used to interact with thirty years back) declared that the whole world should follow Imran Khan (in Urdu, he he said that they should become his "mureed" or disciples). From this incident, the only thing they can learn from Imran Khan is how not to conduct their foreign policies.

Jamat-e-Islami chief and cricket!

Winning either way

Published in Daily Times on November 20, 2013

Photo credit: Daily Times

Sir: I believe the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief, Syed Munawwar Hasan, can do a lot to improve the Pakistani cricket team’s performance. He can ask all Muslims belonging to foreign teams, like Hashim Amla, Imran Tahir, etc, not to play against Pakistan. Of course, he will be ignored but our team will be confident that whenever it loses, which is most of the time, there is a good chance of the JI chief proclaiming that they are very good Muslims and will go to heaven.

SHAKIR LAKHANI

Karachi

Cricket mania

Thank God it’s over. The sheer torture we’ve been subjected to for the past week has been unbearable. For the whole week, it seemed as if every man and woman in the country had turned into a cricket expert. Those who don’t know the difference between a tennis ball and a cricket ball were asked if Pakistan should play Shoaib Akhtar. Afridi’s children were asked what their father could do to win the match. When the match ended, Afridi’s children were shown crying and blaming Misbah for the defeat. It seems that the only person they didn’t discuss the match with was Afridi’s driver. Even those who consider watching TV a heinous sin (the madressah students and clerics) said they would spend the afternoon watching the match. I knew, of course, that the Indians would win. Pakistan had been incredibly lucky to reach the semi-finals, but from the very first ball you could see that the Indians were unbeatable. Normally I don’t watch cricket matches, but this time my grandchildren forced me to do so. I don't want to hear the word "cricket" for the next six months.

Pakistan vs India in cricket

Pakistan vs India

Published in Daily Times on March 29, 2011

Sir: I just cannot understand why Pakistanis and Indians get so worked up when there is a cricket match between their teams. For God’s sake, it is only a game. Yet every Pakistani and every Indian has turned into a cricket expert, and each is confident that his/her team will be the winner. The world will not end if Pakistan loses and Kashmir will not be handed over to us if it wins.

SHAKIR LAKHANI

Match-fixing in Bangalore

DOUBTS ON MATCH

Published in Khaleej Times on March 3, 2011

It’s going to be very difficult to prove, but the Bangalore fixture between England and India appears to have been fixed. First of all, Shane Warne confidently predicted that it would end in a tie in the middle of the match. Secondly, millions of rupees were bet on the match ending in a tie. If Pakistan had been one of the teams, the ICC would have cancelled the results and penalised a couple of players.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi, Pakistan

Match fixing

Cricket chaos

Published in The Express Tribune on September 1, 2010

Assuming that they are guilty, can you really blame the cricketers for indulging in match-fixing? After all, they (like all Pakistanis) have seen that there is no accountability in the country. They have seen politicians looting the country and buying property abroad, and getting away with it. They have seen disqualified parliamentarians being allowed to contest elections despite everyone knowing that they had submitted forged degrees earlier to contest elections. So why should they be punished for taking money for bowling no-balls?

Shakir Lakhani

Watch out, Pakistan!

India vs Pakistan

Published in Daily Times on May 11, 2010

Sir: We should not be shocked at India’s defeat in the T-20 match against the Australians. The margin of defeat shows that India means business when it comes to Pakistan. They have proved that if Pakistan can lose to the Australians, so can they. India wants to show to the world that it is against terrorism, so what better way than to lose a cricket match, which everyone thought they would win? Pakistan had better be careful. If it wants to outdo India, it will have to lose by an even greater margin. And if it does not do anything to dismantle the terrorist training camps, which exist only in India’s imagination, India might end up by finishing at the bottom. Watch out, Pakistan!

SHAKIR LAKHANI

Karachi