Pak-India cricket match: A noisy Sunday as fans throng venues across twin cities

Towards the end of the match, a fight broke out during the screening at Fatima Jinnah Park.


Waqas Naeem October 01, 2012

ISLAMABAD: They left disappointed, but fans of the Pakistan cricket team showed up in large numbers to support their team at various match screenings around the twin cities on Sunday.

One of the largest screenings in Islamabad was organised by the Capital Development Authority at Fatima Jinnah Park with Pepsi’s sponsorship. Despite the small screen, a crowd of around 2,000 people waving flags and blaring horns created an electric atmosphere as they cheered for the men in green.

Unlike other big recent matches, no public screens were put up at the Islamabad Stock Exchange building on Jinnah Avenue and the Jinnah Super Market in F-7, which might have contributed to the large turnout at the park.

Fans danced and shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” every time a Pakistani batsman scored a boundary. In the crowd, Muhammad Arsalan honked a horn every other ball to show his support for Pakistan.

“These matches provide us with moments when different, scattered communities within our nation come together under one flag,” said Arsalan, who works for Byte4All in Islamabad.

Arsalan said these match screenings have become an alternative for Pakistani cricket fans, who have not seen any international cricket take place in the country since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.

A few families were also present at the periphery of the largely male crowd.

Ikram Ihsan, who watched the match at the park with his wife and two children, said, “We’re here more for the accompanying entertainment than the actual match,” he said, pointing at the mass of people obstructing the distant screen in front of him.

Ihsan added that in the absence of international matches taking place in the country, his children, a first grader and a fourth grader, have never seen a match in a stadium. “They think the screening is what a cricket match looks like,” Ihsan joked.

Towards the end of the match, however, as India closed in on the low-target set by Pakistan, frustrated fans threw bottles at the screen with multiple fist fights breaking out.

While many people went for the free screening, some opted to pay up to watch Pakistan battle it out with India.

Around 1,400 people showed up at Cinepax in Rawalpindi for the match screening, organised by Pepsi and Verve. The match was shown on all five screens and the Rs400 tickets had sold out by Saturday night, the Cinepax management said.

People at Cinepax were a bit disappointed by Pakistan’s low score, but during the innings break, fans danced in the refreshments area and lifted the spirits of cricket fans inside the cinema.

At The 3rd Base Cafe in Islamabad, people were being turned back from the door because the place was over capacity. The owner of the cafe, Mian Mohsin Masud, said the turnout was “as expected” for the high stakes Pakistan-India match.

Inside the cafe, fans could be heard chanting “Malik a gaya maidan mein! Ho Jamalo!” when Shoaib Malik scored a boundary during the Pakistani innings.

Muhammad Shahid, was waving a Pakistani flag and said his friends had come from Rawalpindi to the cafe. Shahid, who works for Telenor, said he had no qualms about paying Rs500 for the ticket, because of the positive atmosphere.

“There are no security concerns here and definitely no pushing and shoving as you might encounter at a free screening,” he noted.

Hira Abid, an undergraduate student at Fatima Jinnah Women’s University, had coordinated with her friends to watch the match at Rock Bistro in F-10/2.

“With a match like Pakistan-India, everyone is enthusiastic about getting together to support our team,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1st, 2012.

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