Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

It was a usual, mild November evening. I had gone to my maternal aunt’s house for a dinner with my mother. Me and a couple of my cousins were eagerly watching the final between Pakistan and New Zealand. Confident that Pakistan will easily chase the 212 target, we set about discussing who will be the man-of-the-match, how much will Boom Boom Afridi score, and bla bla bla. Less did we know, our cricket team had a terrible surprise up its sleeve. One after another, like a pack of cards or a like a falling Domino puzzle, our batsmen started losing their wickets by playing totally wild and rash strokes.

It seemed as if they wanted to score stylishly rather than winning the match. It was totally unprecedented to witness world-class batsmen playing like a gang of 13 year-olds out to impress their friends. Suddenly, the small score of 212 on a good batting track was not looking that small and achievable anymore. After being 86-8, I thought Pakistan is going to lose it by a huge margin. Sensing a defeat, we decided to answer my aunt’s call for dinner. We didn’t even talk about the match during the dinner as we were totally disgusted. Moreover, we didn’t want to spoil the taste of the deliciously cooked food that we were having. Finishing our dinner, we went back to our cousin’s room and switched on TV only to find Umer gul get out on the next ball. At this stage, we were sure it would be Pakistan’s lowest total against the Kiwis. Again, we shouldn’t have been so sure about our cricket team. The Pakistani cricketers once again proved why they are termed as the most unpredictable team in the history of World cricket.

As Saeed Ajmal joined Mohammed Amir for the 10th wicket, I turned to my cousin and said, “Ajaml doesn’t know how to play. He doesn’t even know how to hold a cricket bat properly.”

The Ajmal and Amir duo started very gingerly, and I was expecting a wicket to fall anytime soon; But, suddenly on the third ball of Daniel Vettori’s over Amir struck a beautiful sweeping six on the leg side. The next ball, it was another six in the same direction.A ball later, it was another six. Three flat sixes in an over! Daniel Vettori was gutted. We were ecstatic. The crowd that was leaving in droves suddenly stopped and came back to cheer the 17 year-old left armer, who was now standing up to the Kiwis.

Suddenly, a new life was breathed into the stadium. People starting applauding, chanting “Jeetay ga bhai jeetay ga, Pakistan jeetay ga”. The stadium wasn’t that quiet anymore. Amir struck a couple of fours, almost knocking out Saeed Ajmal in the process, and the game was taking a twist. Me and my cousins were not lying on the bed anymore. We were sitting up, closer to the TV, our fist clenched into our hands, and going back and forth like a pendulum, in utter anticipation of some more big shots. And they came. Some were intentionally struck, while some were totally because of sheer luck. Either way, they were all adding to the total.

The required rate suddenly started to come down slightly, the runs required to win were dropping from 100 to 90 to 70 and now to 60. We were looking at each other in amazement as how these players can play like that. At this point, our biggest fear was of Saeed Ajmal getting out as he is not renowned for his batting; But, somehow he started playing some great wristy strokes for ones and twos that would even challenge Sachin Tendulkar for pure wrist twisting. Amir and ajmal’s partenrship was growing rapidly, breaking many personal, team, and world records in the process. Amir’s fifty was up, and he was still going strong. These tail-enders were reading the line and length of the bowlers much better than the reputed batsmen of our team. We started hoping that there might be a win here.  As the required runs to win dropped into single digits, the duo started to get a bit shaky. That was bound to happen as they are not used to “batting” in such pressure. As the last over started with 8 runs to win, the whole nation was hoping for a miracle victory here. The crowd at the Abu Dhabi stadium was now up on their feet.

The first ball from Jacom Oram was a really short one, an Achilles heel of the whole Pakistani team. Ajmal tried pulling the short ball, top-edging it, and was caught out by Kyle Mills in the deep. The kiwis had one. Pakistan had lost.  But this defeat was acceptable. The crowd started clapping as soon as Ajmal got out. Appreciating the fighting spirit of the two bowlers who gave the Kiwis a run for their money. Me and my cousins were ecstatic that our team escaped the rather imminent 140 run defeat and almost gave Daniel Vettori a heart-attack in the process.

As I left my aunt’s house, I had a big smile on my face even though our team lost. That smile was courtesy of the fighting spirit showed by the duo of Amir and Ajmal..!!

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