On March 30th, Pakistan faced India in the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali, India. Without any doubt, this was probably the most anticipated match of the 2011 ICC World Cup. Everytime the World Cup fever comes around, one of the questions that is one just about everybody's tongues no matter even if they don't belong to these two nations is if Pakistan and India will face off in the battlefield?.
The moment Pakistan cleared the Quarterfinals against West Indies on March 23rd, most of the people I know wanted India to win against Australia so that these two teams can finally have another go at each other. Also nobody wanted Australia to take home the World Cup for the fourth time in a row. And once India defeated Australia, the entire nation burst into a patriotic haze. Everywhere you look everybody was sporting the Pakistani team t-shirt, even on the days that Pakistan was not playing people were displaying their love for the home team by wearing green. Personally speaking, I have never even seen our nation so geared up on August 14th, which is our Independence Day. Everybody had their green on. It was indeed a sight to behold!
Yesterday all over Pakistan either it was declared a holiday or it was a half day so that people can watch the game from the comfort of their homes or wherever they choose to do so from. Auditoriums were booked where the match was being aired on the giant screen. There was a small crowd gathered just about everywhere there was a TV in viewing range. No matter what channel you switched to there would be some TV program centered around the match citing historical matches when the two Cricket giants battled. I was at a friend's place where almost all of my friends from university had gathered for the match. Even the girls had made an appearance. Adrenaline rushed our bodies, sugar levels soared as we munched on dorritos and pizzas, alot of chest bumping was going on and violent shaking when our team pulled of something brilliant and giant cries of desperation, curses and cusses were hurled like they were nothing. There were two points in the match when the great Sachin Tendulkar was seemingly eliminated but on closer inspection turned out not to be so. One guy yelled "M*th*rf*ck*r!" in a series of go without stopping not even realizing that his family was sitting in the next room. Yeah, that's how charged everybody was!
Gay guys are generally not that much into sports, but all of my gay friends were watching the match. My profile on the gay dating website got absolutely no hits during the entire time the match was going on. Every single status on Facebook was wishing our team the best. If you still don't get how we feel about Cricket, watch the video below;
Yeah! That's the extent to which Cricket has a hold on our nation. And I wouldn't change it any other way!
Unfortunately Pakistan lost the match. I'll admit that I did not want Pakistan to loose. I'll admit that I wanted Pakistan to face Sri Lanka in the final on April 2nd. I'll admit that I would not have minded at all if Pakistan would have won yesterday but lost on Saturday. I'll admit that I was disheartened and quite depressed. I've bumped the Pakistani team members off my crush list for good - especially a particular player. But at the end of the day, I'm Pakistani and I can not desert my team.
It's annoying to see the entire nation claiming bullshit like the match was fixed or Indian team was being favored as if the Indian team lost yesterday, people will not turn up to watch the final in Mumbai. I don't think these people would have been saying such stuff if Pakistani team had won yesterday. Then it would have been all 'We kicked their ass! Our players are like lions! Nobody can beat Pakistan!" and similar stuff. This is poor sportsman ship!
I'll probably be bashed for saying this but the Indian team was definitely stronger than ours. Our team suffered huge set backs when three regular players were barred from playing due to match fixing allegation and another player was injured. Pakistan suffered another blow when it was not allowed to be a host for any of the matches in the current World Cup due to our terrorism crisis. Whenever the World Cup is hosted in Asia, Pakistan is on the list of hosts. This was the very first time that it wasn't. It was indeed a huge disappointment for the entire nation as watching a match in a stadium is nothing short of amazing. Since I probably won't be in Pakistan for whenever next ICC World Cup is hosted in Asia, I wanted to watch one match in the stadium in my city.
But despite all the curve balls that were thrown at us, we managed to reach till the Semi Finals. And even though we lost, we really did play our hearts out. We didn't loose by a wide margin as if our players didn't invest themselves. We lost by 29 runs. I'll admit there were a couple of mistakes but in any game, a large part is based on luck. It just wasn't our day. The match was very close and I think everybody will agree with me on this point. I know we lost, but then somebody had to loose. But even then I feel we lost fairly. We tried, but the other team was better!
It's time that we stop the frigg'in excuses and allegations, and support our team back. No matter whether they win or loose, they're Pakistani. Just like you! Just like me!
The moment Pakistan cleared the Quarterfinals against West Indies on March 23rd, most of the people I know wanted India to win against Australia so that these two teams can finally have another go at each other. Also nobody wanted Australia to take home the World Cup for the fourth time in a row. And once India defeated Australia, the entire nation burst into a patriotic haze. Everywhere you look everybody was sporting the Pakistani team t-shirt, even on the days that Pakistan was not playing people were displaying their love for the home team by wearing green. Personally speaking, I have never even seen our nation so geared up on August 14th, which is our Independence Day. Everybody had their green on. It was indeed a sight to behold!
Yesterday all over Pakistan either it was declared a holiday or it was a half day so that people can watch the game from the comfort of their homes or wherever they choose to do so from. Auditoriums were booked where the match was being aired on the giant screen. There was a small crowd gathered just about everywhere there was a TV in viewing range. No matter what channel you switched to there would be some TV program centered around the match citing historical matches when the two Cricket giants battled. I was at a friend's place where almost all of my friends from university had gathered for the match. Even the girls had made an appearance. Adrenaline rushed our bodies, sugar levels soared as we munched on dorritos and pizzas, alot of chest bumping was going on and violent shaking when our team pulled of something brilliant and giant cries of desperation, curses and cusses were hurled like they were nothing. There were two points in the match when the great Sachin Tendulkar was seemingly eliminated but on closer inspection turned out not to be so. One guy yelled "M*th*rf*ck*r!" in a series of go without stopping not even realizing that his family was sitting in the next room. Yeah, that's how charged everybody was!
Gay guys are generally not that much into sports, but all of my gay friends were watching the match. My profile on the gay dating website got absolutely no hits during the entire time the match was going on. Every single status on Facebook was wishing our team the best. If you still don't get how we feel about Cricket, watch the video below;
Yeah! That's the extent to which Cricket has a hold on our nation. And I wouldn't change it any other way!
Unfortunately Pakistan lost the match. I'll admit that I did not want Pakistan to loose. I'll admit that I wanted Pakistan to face Sri Lanka in the final on April 2nd. I'll admit that I would not have minded at all if Pakistan would have won yesterday but lost on Saturday. I'll admit that I was disheartened and quite depressed. I've bumped the Pakistani team members off my crush list for good - especially a particular player. But at the end of the day, I'm Pakistani and I can not desert my team.
It's annoying to see the entire nation claiming bullshit like the match was fixed or Indian team was being favored as if the Indian team lost yesterday, people will not turn up to watch the final in Mumbai. I don't think these people would have been saying such stuff if Pakistani team had won yesterday. Then it would have been all 'We kicked their ass! Our players are like lions! Nobody can beat Pakistan!" and similar stuff. This is poor sportsman ship!
I'll probably be bashed for saying this but the Indian team was definitely stronger than ours. Our team suffered huge set backs when three regular players were barred from playing due to match fixing allegation and another player was injured. Pakistan suffered another blow when it was not allowed to be a host for any of the matches in the current World Cup due to our terrorism crisis. Whenever the World Cup is hosted in Asia, Pakistan is on the list of hosts. This was the very first time that it wasn't. It was indeed a huge disappointment for the entire nation as watching a match in a stadium is nothing short of amazing. Since I probably won't be in Pakistan for whenever next ICC World Cup is hosted in Asia, I wanted to watch one match in the stadium in my city.
But despite all the curve balls that were thrown at us, we managed to reach till the Semi Finals. And even though we lost, we really did play our hearts out. We didn't loose by a wide margin as if our players didn't invest themselves. We lost by 29 runs. I'll admit there were a couple of mistakes but in any game, a large part is based on luck. It just wasn't our day. The match was very close and I think everybody will agree with me on this point. I know we lost, but then somebody had to loose. But even then I feel we lost fairly. We tried, but the other team was better!
It's time that we stop the frigg'in excuses and allegations, and support our team back. No matter whether they win or loose, they're Pakistani. Just like you! Just like me!
I swear never more than today have I wanted to be a Pakistani and give these guys love. Well played, guys!
No comments:
Post a Comment