When Two Sixes Changed My Life
When cricket became more than just a game
“Afridi makes room, goes up in the air… has he connected?
It’s gone, IT’S SIX! SHAHID AFRIDI, UNBELIEVABLE SHOT!
What a strike under pressure, the Indians can’t believe it.”
“He goes again, goes big, up in the air, and IT’S SIX!
SHAHID AFRIDI, YOU BEAUTY! What a Win!
Pakistan have smashed it. Shahid Afridi has done it!”
In the spring of 2014, at just nine and a half years old, I witnessed a cricket match that would become a defining moment in my life.
Pakistan and India were clashing in the Asia Cup, a virtual semi-final with the stakes impossibly high. The winner would go to the final and also triumph over their bitter rival.
I remember sitting on the bed, books on my lap, trying to focus on my homework. The match was playing in the background, the commentators’ voices rising and falling with every ball.
I know I must have watched cricket before this particular game — after all, we are a Pakistani family — but I don’t have any recollection of those earlier matches.
This one, however, remains etched in my memory.
