While the political scenario of the country gets sucked deeper and deeper into uncertainty, mystery and chaos, and while our civil and military leaderships reveal their lack of harmony in a more emphatic way, I take this opportunity to thank our cricket team for having provided us some much-needed relief in this hour of gloom.
Early this week, our cricketers after having gone through the agony of being mocked, ridiculed, chided and disgraced by a section of our media, had lifted the nation’s spirits by an emphatic victory over England in the final one-dayer. That victory had been emphatic in the sense that, Pakistan had chased down a 300+ target with incredible ease. And this had happened soon after our team had suffered a humiliating “thrashing” in a one-sided encounter.
That heart-warming victory in which Sarfaraz Ahmad and Shoaib Malik had combined to cut England down to size, was followed last night by a performance on the part of our ‘inspired’ team that not many had expected. England was outclassed in every department of the game. Those very batsmen who had massacred our bowling in the third one-dayer crumbled against Imad Wasim, against Hassan Ali and most importantly against Wahab Riaz, like a house of cards. Wahab Riaz was the one who had been clobbered in England’s 400+ score. And in the lone Twenty-20 contest last night Wahab’s pace made a mockery of England’s heroes. This had happened after England had won the toss and Morgan had ‘joyfully’ chosen to bat first.
England had no idea of what was in store for them. Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif came to the crease— not to bat— but to put the England attack to sword.
The total helplessness of the English bowlers was a joy to watch.
When Babar Azam hit the winning boundary in only the 15th over, my mind could not help going back to the Summer of 1954 when England had been ‘Fazaled’ out by Pakistan at Oval.
Let us learn to respect our cricketers. They have brought us many moments of glory and joy since the Lukhnow Test victory in 1949.
It is to cricket that we owe our gratitude for Imran Khan!
Will our politicians ever simulate our cricketers? Politics has given us MNS. Cricket has given us IK.
