As someone who has watched Pakistan play cricket on numerous occasions overseas, as well as in Karachi, I can tell you the experience is enormously different at home.
Overseas, the seats are comfortable, the stadiums in pristine condition, the crowds well-behaved, the food non-threatening and no eyesore security grill to separate the playing area from the spectators.
At home, the seats will put your rear to sleep, the biryani is spicy enough to make you wish you brought antacid with you, and the frighteningly energetic crowd is so loud that you can’t speak to the person next to you without the aid of a megaphone. Yes, a cricket match at home is a bit like a desi rave party, and it is absolutely electric.
There is something quintessentially Pakistani about the experience. And as someone who is looking to start a family, I am disappointed about the possibility that I won’t be able to take my family to an international cricketing event in Pakistan for the next long while and share that experience. Sadly, potentially a whole generation of Pakistanis will grow up without having the opportunity to experience these splashing emotions.
It is no wonder that with a government and cricket board as comically inept as ours, no cricketing nation has wanted to tour Pakistan since. No nation, aside from Bangladesh of course. When Bangladesh spoke of touring Pakistan recently, after every other country had declined, I wondered if the Bangladeshis valued their lives less than others. When the ICC wasn’t even willing to sanction its own match officials to such a tour, why was Bangladesh so eager to risk their lives?
The answer, of course, is politics. Pakistan and Bangladesh often show solidarity during matters that require ICC voting, and the unreasonable move to tour Pakistan by the Bangladesh Cricket Board clearly had a dirty political air to it. But, of course, all of that was put on hold yesterday, on April 19, 2012 following a Bangladeshi court order. This incident of a court overruling a political body is a fine example of why former cricket captain turned politician extraordinaire, Imran Khan, so strongly believes a free and fair judiciary can help decontaminate Pakistan.
Mushfiqur Rahim and his boys are only sportsmen, not soldiers. Why does it seem unreasonable to us that Bangladeshi sportsmen declined touring a nation where the last visiting side faced a traumatic terrorist assault?
MOHAMMAD HARIS
Karachi
