Revelations from the Pakistani cricket team

It should come as no surprise that our national climax is reached when Pakistan is facing India in a cricket match.

If you want to unlock the secrets to understanding Pakistan’s future, you can begin your journey by studying the performance and team dynamics of the Pakistani cricket team. It’s no coincidence that the catchphrase “unpredictable” describes the Pakistani cricket team and a nation of 180 million people equally well.

Pakistanis view their cricketers, and the world, through the prism of an artificial binary of  “boom booms” and “tuk tuks”. The “boom booms” capture our imagination on and off the cricket field. The thrill of quick fixes, with larger than life narratives can drive us into a frenzy of excitement (think “tsunamis” that can deliver a Naya Pakistan, cars that can run on water and tales of underprivileged children rising from Karachi’s slums to end up in Harvard). In sharp contradistinction to our fascination with “boom booms”, the “tuk tuks” can barely hold our attention, even if we do recognise their value in our lives (think “investing” in education, democratic institution-building and building energy infrastructure). Carrying this analogy to its logical conclusion, we appear to be a nation full of adrenaline junkies in search of a quick fix to escape from our dismal reality.

It should come as no surprise that our national climax is reached when Pakistan is facing off India in a cricket match. We never define our expectations versus what we want to achieve for ourselves. Instead, we define our expectations versus whether or not we’re better than India. Losing our internal development focus behind a brutal obsession with “beating” India is the story of Pakistan’s life. The dramatic irony of all this is that cricket is probably the only platform in which Pakistan can actually “beat” India today.

Interestingly, we’re more intellectually honest about the analysis of our cricket team’s performance compared with our performance as a nation of 180 million people. Stripped of the comforting embrace of conspiracy theories, we should study our feelings towards the Pakistani cricket team for clues to our real feelings towards the country. The truth is that we worship the Pakistani cricket team’s “unpredictability” as a virtue because it enables us to claim that “we can beat any team in the world” on our day. In a revealing review of the Pakistani cricket team, one fan, Hadeel Obaid, described the experience of supporting our team in the following words: “There’s something daring about being a fan of this team. There is no logic to be applied, no predictability. You live for each day, placing blind faith in a team that breaks your heart and then makes you love again, keeping you hungry for more each time.” This insightful analysis, breaking down the irrationality of being a Pakistani cricket fan, helps explain the whimsical nature of patriotism experienced by most of us on August 14 every year, despite the daily disappointments that constitute life in the country. There is no “logic” that can explain our love for the country. Instead, we place “blind faith in a country that breaks our heart and then makes us love again”.

Incidentally, when our most successful cricket captain decided to take a shot at leading the nation, Pakistan’s youth was inspired to break voting records on May 11. After all, we’re a nation that believes our fate is captive to the talent and ingenuity of our captain. Notice the difference in audience reaction between Pakistan winning a cricket match and losing one. Whenever Pakistan wins a match, 180 million people rush to take credit. On the other hand, when Pakistan loses a match, it’s usually the captain’s fault. In the final analysis, Pakistan is a nation brimming with talented individuals, much like its cricket team. But instead of taking ownership of our poor collective performance, we find reasons to blame others, including our captain. More often than not, a skipper doesn’t create a successful side. Instead, a successful skipper delivers superior results by making a strong team play to their strengths. In fact, there’s a reason why Pakistan has produced talented bowlers and batsmen but never really nurtured great talent in fielding. That’s because batting and bowling enable cricketers to make a name for themselves in the team. Fielding merely helps the team win more consistently.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2013.

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