It's Just Not Cricket

There was something about the comical end to the cricket match between Pakistan and England that wasn’t wholly surprising to anyone who has followed Pakistani cricket over the years. There has always been something amateurish about the way in which they have gone about the game-and that is, I would say, what has always made them such an exciting team to watch. Back in Pakistan we always used to say “anything can happen” and “always expect the unexpected” -and this was as true of our politics as it was of daily lives. Everything always changed and yet it always remained the same. And so the cricket team has come to represent all the qualities of the country itself: a mixture of brilliance and bravado, flamboyance and farce. Very often the unexpected did happen and when it didn’t we could always fall back on the excuse of match fixing!

Let’s face it. The series was a lacklustre one without the likes of the hugely talented ‘Freddie’ Flintoff and Muhammad Asif, and without the ‘Pindi Express’, Shoaib Akhtar. Despite Bob Woolmer’s admirable efforts to add some steel to the side they have still retained some of the flashes of their true colours-the dramatic collapses, the wild overthrows, the suicidal running between the wickets and, oh yes, the ability to collapse onto one’s wicket a la Inzamam! But when all is said and done, and when the dust from this unpleasant episode settles, I hope that all genuine cricket lovers will look back and remember the effortless greatness of the Pakistani captain, the swashbuckling stroke play by Younis Khan and the irresistible charm of the impetuous Afridi.

No-one will begrudge England her victory-they were the better side. This singular event is the one that will stick in the memory but if we concentrate really hard some of us will remember that this was a scorching summer when Strauss found some steel in his nerves, a summer when a Sikh enjoyed cult status (perhaps for a season only, given the vagaries of the game); more than anything else, it was a summer when our star arrived too late, when one of the old-world cricketers, one of the truly greats, stepped up to play his last innings under dark skies. And yet his understated greatness is , perhaps, destined to go unnoticed.

Many commentators have noted that the Pakistani team could have complained in a more appropriate fashion by protesting after the match. Of course, that would have been a reasonable approach but one totally out of sink with the Pakistani mentality.
It was a question of honour more than anything. But even here there was something of the old world commonsense and pragmatism that both countries share. The team was hoping that their sense of grievance would be heard but, as they say back home, “if not, then not.”

Pakistani cricket is changing and I dread the day that they (we) become more cold and calculated. For cricket is not just cricket, it’s a way of life. And in cricket, as in life, there is a wonderful range of personalities and attitudes. The bearded Muhammad Yusuf could say in a post-match interview he didn’t do anything, that it was all God’s Will whilst Younis Khan, when asked why he played like such a ‘tiger’ replied, because it’s in our blood to fight like a tiger. No, a tame post-match protest would have been a quintessentially English way to go about things. To the very last the team showed why they were Pakistani: style and panache above victory-even if that can sometimes end up in the ridiculous.