Transcending boundaries

Cricket is, inarguably, second only to religion in Pakistan. There is a general perception that words are cheap in this country so you are likely to read such flowery descriptions of what cricket truly means to Pakistanis but, for 12 days in the uncomfortable heat of May, this nation’s love for cricket was on full display. It took six years and four months, but when cricket finally came home, it came in a manner that will be remembered by all for many years to come.

The people of Pakistan got a taste of what they cherish the most and the utility factor, derived primarily by virtue of international cricket coming to Pakistan after such a long time, covered for what was essentially a contest between two low-ranking sides. To be fair, this was never about cricket. This was never about a Pakistani scoring runs or picking up wickets. You could hardly tell the difference between sixes hit by Azhar Ali and Elton Chigumbura. The crowds clapped in unison as the likes of Sikandar Raza and Chigumbura acknowledged their support. Then there were the “Zimbabwe! Zimbabwe!” chants during every match — 22,000 fans thanking Zimbabwe in complete unison. For five days, approximately 110,000 Pakistanis gathered and celebrated life. The euphoria was more about being able to showcase that Pakistanis are peaceful and fun-loving people, and less about who was winning on the field.

Match tickets were available on the internet and orders came in from almost everywhere. Fans sitting in places like Badin, Bhakkar, Lala Musa and Dipalpur purchased tickets. The fact that people from all provinces got together in Lahore has great symbolic value for a society that is battling hard against internal divides. To add to this, there were the seemingly endless security checkpoints that the fans had to go through in order to enter the stadium. They remained disciplined, smiled and chanted slogans. No one complained and that, in itself, is a big achievement. All Test-playing nations were addressed through banners placed in different enclosures. The message? We miss you. While teams like Australia and England are unlikely to visit Pakistan anytime soon, these messages served as excellent examples of the fact that cricket transcends all boundaries.

Inherent to any game’s development is the interest that it is able to generate. With no international games at home, cricket has obviously become a tough product to sell and in terms of the number of people playing interest is dwindling. But think of the young fans — the ones who had their first stadium experience. That feeling of being in the midst of a galaxy of sporting stars was something new to them. Many of them will now look at cricket from a slightly different perspective. Many of them will now want to be like the players who did well in this series. This series had great symbolic value for Pakistani cricketers as well. Players such as Azhar Ali, Umar Akmal, Ahmad Shehzad, Junaid Khan and Asad Shafiq got their first games on home turf. These are future cricketing stars, who have been deprived of showcasing their talent in front of their own people. For other cricketing nations, this is a norm. For Pakistan, this had started to look like a distant dream. Perhaps, unknowingly, a bunch of Zimbabweans have done what certainly is the greatest service to Pakistani cricket in the last decade. Against all odds, against all advices, and fighting their own nerves, they decided to go ahead with this tour. Pakistan, quite clearly, needed to heal. And for these 12 days, Zimbabweans became our healers.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th,  2015.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.