Pakistan’s Love Affair with Cricket

Ganesh Raj
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read
Pakistan Thrashed India to Win the 2017 Champions Trophy.

Pakistan’s love affair with cricket is one for the ages. They have always been the most talented cricketing country in the world. No other country produces world class batsmen, fast bowlers, spinners and all rounders consistently like they do.

But it rarely matters, for no other team is as volatile and inconsistent in their performances as Pakistan is either. This is the same team we destroyed by 120 runs two weeks ago, and this is the same team that then went on to beat South Africa and England and lastly us in the last one week.

They will probably horribly lose their next series and then a week later they might go on to whitewash South Africa in South Africa. And I feel the reason for their unpredictability is not the fact that they are a bad team, I feel its because they aren’t yet corrupted on the field. I know what you’re thinking now? How am I labeling a team with the most fixing scandals as uncorrupted? Well, let me explain.

Pakistan have always had it worse when compared to the rest of the world. While cricket has opened up to the world and is bringing in huge money, while cricket superstars are earning as much as hollywood superstars, while cricket has embraced technology like no other and “moneyball” has been adapted from baseball to cricket, while Teams are pumping millions into super secret research centers, motion capture technique corrections and data miners to give them that .03% advantage, Pakistan can’t even play at home.

They are forever the tourists, the nomads of the cricketing world, pleading their way from one series to the next, hardly making ends meet, making do with whatever they are given. They are brimming with talent, they are raw, untrained and doesn’t really understand the big bad business of cricket as well as the other countries do.

This lack of exposure and training means that they are always playing catchup with the other teams and inadvertently, they continue to lose; the others teams are so much more well equipped, well sponsored and well trained, that, they feel as if they can’t compete and you get the feeling that their No 8 World Ranking is justified.

But this lack of training and their lack of understanding of the bigger picture has one up side to it: it has nurtured and protected their sense of innocence and wonder. In other words, on the field, they are uncorrupted.

You look at the Pakistan team on the field today and you get the feeling that they are playing for the sheer joy of playing the game. They know they don’t have the resources, they know they are playing against teams that are technically more prepared. But they don’t care for they aren’t burdened with numbers to decipher, contracts to meet, deadlines to commit to or sponsors to please.

For them, in these tumultuous times, cricket is an escape, they play to forget and in doing so, every once in a while, they remember. They remember just how talented they are, they remember that for all the technical wizardry and preparations, at the end of the day, what matters is what you do between those 22 yards, they remember the sheer joy of hitting a six, or getting a wicket. They travel back to the streets of Pakistan where they fell in the love with the game for the first time as kids.

And then on a day like today, slowly this careless abandon of their’s start to work. On their day, their lack of resources and research is no match for their abundance in talent. Things start happening, 18 years old’s are getting wickets, 36 year old’s are diving around saving boundaries, players just starting off are getting centuries and the greatest of teams crumble in front of them, and they Win. For a day. What an absolute love affair.

They are the epitome of what Cricket was and needs to be. They are everything right and wrong with cricket at the same time. They are volatile. They are unpredictable. They are inconsistent. But they are also uncorrupted, unrestrained and remind us why we fell in love with this game in the first place.

They remind us why sport is the great leveler, that two countries at war can come together on a level playing field to compete and one of them can go back victorious with no families getting destroyed in the process.

But most importantly, they remind us why we should strive to always nurture and protect our sense of wonder, for that is what drives us, that is what makes us go that extra mile, that is what made us choose this career to begin with.

They are Pakistan. Raw. Untrained. Ugly. But boy can they play and play pretty darn well!

Congrats Pakistan. Today was your day and you owned it in style.

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