A day at Lord’s

LONDON:  They say that in Britain, you can never rely on three things: work, women and the weather. I cannot comment on the first two, but when it comes to the weather, the saying certainly seems to hold true.

When I arrived in London, I was greeted by sunshine. My Uber driver told me that the city had been experiencing its harshest heat-wave in three months, with barely any rain during that period. I had some idea of this already, but, as luck would have it, the rain began on the very day of the Test match.

I had left the hotel wearing an ordinary shirt, but after seeing the weather, I decided to take a jacket with me as well.

After reaching Lord’s, I called the media manager, who came outside to hand me my accreditation card. This was my first visit to England in four and a half years. As expected, the match was delayed.

Inside Lord’s beautifully designed, capsule-shaped media centre, I met a fellow journalist. When we started discussing possible changes to the Pakistan team, I told him that the opening pair would probably remain unchanged, but Salman Ali Agha might be dropped. He replied, “But he captained the side in the previous match. How can they drop him?” As it turned out, that was exactly what happened.

That is Pakistan cricket for you, its ways are unique, and anything is possible. Given Salman’s current form, however, the decision seemed justified.

When I took the lift down from the media centre, I found cricket fans everywhere. In our country, you do not see as many people attending a T20 match as you find at a Test in England. People here are immensely passionate about sport, and they are provided with excellent facilities at stadiums. Cricket is accompanied by plenty of other entertainment and activities.

At Lord’s, food and drink stalls were everywhere. The traditional shop was there, of course, along with several temporary outlets selling shirts, caps and other merchandise. They were all packed with customers. Even the cheapest shirt cost £40, around Rs15,000. Naturally, I had no intention of paying that much, so I simply looked around and moved on.

There I met a Pakistani cricket fan named Ahmer, who recognised me and told me that he had travelled all the way from Canada specifically to watch the Lord’s Test.

When I went outside to record some videos, I met several more Pakistani fans. One young man had travelled from the United States. He told me that two of his friends had cancelled their trip after witnessing Pakistan’s defeat at Headingley, but he had decided not to change his plans.

I also met a father and son who had come from America to watch the match. They were convinced that Babar Azam’s return would improve Pakistan’s performance.

They said, “Surely nobody has come all the way from Pakistan to watch a match. Look at us, we’ve come from America.”

I replied, “Well, you have the resources to do that.”

For many Pakistanis, simply getting beyond the everyday problems of life is difficult enough before they can even think about travelling abroad to watch a cricket match.

They responded, “Well, we work very hard too.”

I said, “Pakistanis work very hard as well, but unfortunately, they do not always get the reward for it.”

On my way back to the media centre, I noticed fans standing in an orderly line along both sides of the pathway leading towards the ground. They were waiting for the cricketers to pass by so they could meet them. They had an opportunity to see the stars from close range, although security officials were not allowing them to take selfies.

When I returned to the media centre, I saw Ramiz Raja in the dining area, engrossed in a phone conversation. Urooj Mumtaz was also there, having come to do commentary. Wasim Akram was not there this time. I had spoken to him on the phone a few days earlier, and he had already told me that he would not be coming.

Very few journalists had travelled from Pakistan either. Mirza Iqbal Baig, Ijaz Bakhri and Aqeel Ahmed were among those I spotted in the media centre.

At lunchtime, I also met Pakistani media professionals based in London. It reminded me of a previous occasion at Lord’s, when I had sit in the same place talking to then PCB chairman Najam Sethi, Wasim Akram and others.

I also felt the absence of the late journalist Qamar Ahmed. I remembered an incident involving him in the media box. At the time, a bucket filled with energy drinks would be placed there, and one Pakistani journalist would drink them one after another every day.

Qamar sahib warned him that consuming so many energy drinks was not good for his health. The journalist ignored him. For the next two days, however, the poor fellow did not even make it to the stadium. When we asked what had happened, we learned that he had developed a stomach problem.

The food consisted of grilled chicken and other dishes that do not particularly suit someone like me, accustomed to desi food. I consoled myself:

“Son, be grateful for whatever you are getting. They are hardly going to prepare biryani, qurma or chicken tikka especially for you at Lord’s.”

I ate only a little, but I more than made up for it by having plenty of conversation with the interesting Aqeel Ahmed and others.

Before the match began, the traditional bell was rung by former Pakistan star Zaheer Abbas. Pakistan won the toss and, quite rightly, chose to bowl first.

Mohammad Abbas bowled superbly.

At one point, I went outside to appear on Express News’ programme Sports World, where I heard fellow journalist Yousuf Anjum and former cricketer Aamer Sohail arguing that Pakistan should have batted first after winning the toss.

I jokingly or, in reality, quite seriously, said that had we batted first, six or seven of our batsmen might have been back in the pavilion by the end of the opening session.

That is precisely the problem with our team. We take wickets early and then give opportunities to opponents to build partnerships. Even now, I was worried that the same thing might happen.