Karachi needs cricket for non-cricketing reasons

Development in city, a sense of safety, fearless environment were the biggest winners courtesy PSL3 final

When you are growing up in the ‘City of Lights’, Karachi, you are literally forced to be a part of the festivities that are on offer for the general public.

You can’t run from them. You can’t hide. There is only one option left for you then: become a part of these festive occasions and try to fathom why people are out on the streets with their families, friends or whoever they can catch to accompany them.

The same happened when the final playoff was played between Peshawar Zalmi and Karachi Kings in Lahore, where the former beat the latter to book a trip to Karachi.

With the lineup for the final complete and Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi set to compete for the PSL3 winner’s trophy, the city, which had lost its gleam and glamour to bad administration and street crimes, was brought to life once again.

If you are a regular commuter around the National Stadium of Karachi, you would have witnessed how the roads around the area transformed from tyre-bursting hell to a peaceful haven for the Karachiites.

March 23 couldn’t have come on a better day as people swarmed Shahrahe Faisal, Dalmia Road and the Time Medicos roundabout on Thursday night and then again on Friday and Saturday.

What were they doing there? Enjoying the communal experience which had been missing in the financial hub of Pakistan in the last decade due to the lack of safety on the streets of Karachi.

Yes, the final of the third edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) was being celebrated like Eid by the residents of the city.

Kids taking pictures with their favourite players’ effigies, parents helping them and then asking for their help, young boys singing national songs and chattering about who is going to win and why, all this and a lot more happening on the roads of Karachi.

Yes, you read it right, on the same roads of Karachi where the police were unable to catch a guy stabbing girls during dusk hours. And the cherry on the cake? All of this starting just before midnight hours and ending around first light.

I was able to ignore it one day, but the next day I stopped. For a guy who has been mugged on the streets of Karachi, stopping the car and walking out of it around 3am sends shivers down my spine. But that day was different. I didn’t feel threatened. There were no police or rangers mobiles guarding the area, yet I didn’t feel any danger.

I walked around the Time Medico area for a while where the #InKarachi effigy stands tall, took a few pictures for my Instagram story, passed smiles to other guys of my age and then went home.

There was a certain ecstasy of emotions running through my veins. I had never felt so safe in my city before, not at this time in the night at least. For a city famous for its night life, the roads and streets are still not safe, but the mere presence of ordinary people, the feeling of living in a city — an established urban hub for people from all walks of life — made me feel happy.

For the fans of the game, cricket’s revival in the city would be the biggest happiness they’ve extracted from PSL3. But for me, a middle-class man living and working in Karachi, the sense of safety and the fearless environment where one can enjoy a good communal experience is the biggest winner.

We need more cricket in Karachi, not because the city would wither without it, but because the city, at least some of it, transformed into something completely different yet good.