Monday 25 / November / 2024
If an entire country had a current relationship status — like the one on Facebook — it would likely be: In love with PSL.
The colourful scheme of things that the Pakistan Super League (PSL) is turning out to be makes it a touch difficult not to be swayed by feel good emotion, even tremulous pride for a cricket-mad nation.
After all, Pakistan cricket has looked barren for so long that even the Thar Desert in its Sindh province has seemed a little less parched at the worst of times!
It is probably, the best thing to have happened to Pakistan cricket since the 1992 epoch-making triumph Down Under in terms of impact.
After the unfortunate attack on the visiting Sri Lankan team in 2009, Pakistan cricket was left bruised in spirit and continent-hopping with no place to call home. The spectacular PSL will have done much to revive its fortunes even though it is some distance from its avowed mission of bringing the troops, and paraphernalia home. But it’s a start, and a terrific one at that.
This space is too little to encapsulate what has happened in the past fortnight and a half. While the action has been breathtaking on the field, no less endearing has it been off it either.
From that colossus of the post-War pantheon, Sir Vivian Richards, jumping like an Olympian hurdler to celebrate Quetta Glads’ sensational chase down of a 200 plus score (one is told it has happened only once in 8 editions of IPL) after an Afghan (the affable Mohammad Nabi) scripted perhaps, the greatest T20 last over assault to just returned Mohammad Amir’s eyeball grabbing hat-trick and the fervent Calypso appeal of Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and that irrepressibly, lovable character Darren Sammy to the who’s who of Pakistan cricket pitted against each other (Ahmed Shehzad vs Wahab Riaz, Misbah vs Afridi...you get the drift) in what had only seemed like a figment of imagination until now, there it was!
Off the park, if Kevin Pieterson was playing with Umer Gul’s little darling sitting pretty on his lap, Afridi’s daughters were winning hearts on the telly — with a rare glimpse of Mrs Boom Boom in the stands. If rival keepers Sarfaraz Ahmed and Kamran Akmal — remember who replaced whom and how — were both happy in a single frame with Moin Khan as if calling Ripley’s attention, Zainab Abbas, the fetching super bilingual new face of Pakistan cricket speak, was amply providing the kind of soft image this country has craved for donkeys years.
So what’s the take home then, for now (a record 55 per cent of Pakistan’s population was glued to the idiot box for a Karachi vs Lahore round robin rendezvous, according to one estimate)?
The best thing PSL has done is to have returned the smile to Pakistan cricket. There’s an unmistakable newfound confidence that says ‘we may have been denied our due — think IPL — but we’re here, we have the smarts and we matter’. With the foreign imports no less impressed with the fare, the Pakistani leaguers may even be entitled to chide: Take that!
This brings us to the next best thing that has happened: Bonding. Not only has a neat spread of national team players worn different jerseys for the city franchises but have been afforded a unique gelling experience with some of the world’s best players in the format and an array of topnotch coaches on the international circuit.
The same bonding may bode well on another level, too. It will have hopefully, worked some space in the minds of the hitherto reluctant international stars about playing in Pakistan, sometime in the future. While there’s no disputing the colour of money, don’t be surprised if the cheese will move enough for some of them to take a punt a couple of editions down the road.
For now, the fare is restricted to little more than a television sport for cricket-starved Pakistanis at home. But make no mistake, it will have done enough to fire the imagination of the young. Quick fame, rolling greenback, and reasonably short route to the national colours is bound to lure their lot. Simple math actually!
Expect the competition to hot up even further from the next edition when franchises will have wisened to the right mix. The nature of the sport — and platform — is such that aspiring players and even those like Saeed Ajmal trying to make a comeback will be forced to think on their feet, and often out-of-the-box. The new verve is already evident with the likes of rookies Mohammad Nawaz and Ruman Raees making such an unbelievably quick impact as to find a place in the Asia and World T20 squads in less than a week of the PSL getting off ground!
We may be in the middle of a mini revolution here. A little peace when it eventually comes to Pakistan and the possibilities will be endless!
