Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 16
March 1, 2015
Unloved UAE
Amjad Javed, Khurram Khan and Krishna Chandran Karate play cricket for the United Arab Emirates. They also work for one of the national airlines of their country, Emirates.
Emirates is one of the major sponsors of the World Cup. Emirates has spent millions putting its banners up around the ground, sponsoring the reviews, playing its theme tune and generally making it known that it is the official airline of the World Cup.
The World Cup is a billion-dollar event. Companies like Emirates spend millions to align their brands with it. But the Emirates employees who are out in the middle, they are doing it as amateurs. When Khurram plays a cut shot so sweet you could taste it, Javed stands over his run-up like an Olympic diver, and Chandran plays and misses at an outswinger by an infinitesimal amount, they are part of the event, part of the vision statement. But they are the freaks.
Virat Kohli has his stats shown on the screen. The UAE players have their day jobs shown.
At best they are company cricket ringers. Brought in to fill a job as a day-wager, or receptionist, or clerk, but they also play for their company’s team. Of course, even that can go sour, as Paul Radley pointed out recently in the Cricket Monthly, with the case of Rohan Mustafa: “He almost missed out on making the final World Cup squad due to a work dispute brought about, predictably, by cricket. Without written permission from his employers, he played in a domestic match for another corporation. It infuriated his boss to the extent that he brought a case against Mustafa for absconding from duty. The claim was upheld in court and he was told to leave the country immediately.”
After the Emirates Cricket Board intervened, Mustafa received a new visa. Today he took a sensational one-hand catch at backward point and reviewed a decision while he was batting. That was from a ball he at no stage saw. The first time he saw it was on the big screen showing him how far he missed it by, and that he was playing a shot that doesn’t actually exist. Had his visa still been revoked, though, the catch would have got it reinstated.
Mustafa is not an Emirati. Most of this squad are expats, even Amjad Javed, who was born and bred in the UAE. Their captain is Mohammad Tauqir, who is Emirati. After a two-year retirement, and despite the fact he was 43, he was brought back to lead this team. Against India, he played a sweep shot so poorly he started to fall over before he was bowled. His first over went for 11. Later he said: “We need to do the basics right.”
When Australia played Pakistan in the UAE in 2014, they used Saqlain Haider (the back-up UAE keeper), when Brad Haddin couldn’t keep. Australia didn’t play the UAE. No one does. The ICC’s headquarters are in the UAE. Two other teams at this World Cup use it as a base. Everyone flies through it. The IPL was there. Sharjah has hosted more ODIs than most of us have been to. And yet it seems it is almost impossible, with all these tours, flights and training for international teams to actually play the UAE. As if full Test nations are allergic to them. Afghanistan, based in the same region, provide occasional games. Late last year, UAE beat them 3-1 in an ODI series.
Prior to the World Cup, the last time UAE played a full ICC member was seven years ago. “The whole tournament is a learning experience for us,” was how Tauqir talked about the pinnacle of cricket. They are using it to get better. This is their chance at improvement – the rest of the time they have to daydream about what it’s like to bowl to Chris Gayle. Here, they will learn, the hard way. Naked and alone in front of everyone at a World Cup. Not in an ODI in Dubai, or Trinidad, years earlier.
How do you improve if you don’t play the best teams? Should the UAE players visualise Umesh Yadav in training camps? Have their friends sledge them in Jamaican, South African and Indian slang from outside the nets? Pay tweeters to harass them? Until you have walked out on a ground knowing that the opposition has more analysts than you have players, you can’t truly know what top-level international cricket is like.
“The more we play against bigger nations the more we learn” Tauqir said. But what if they don’t want you to learn, they don’t care if you learn, or generally care if you exist?
The ICC tries to prepare them. By that, I mean the hard-working professionals who work for the ICC, not the chairmen who sit around counting “their” billion-dollar contracts and shooting off their mouths that the Associate sides are not good enough. The ICC got them Paul Collingwood and Mohammad Nazir to help out. It let them use its facilities. It gave them a small amount of money to keep them afloat.
That money doesn’t change that the UAE players have to work proper jobs, have had a retired player replace their captain, don’t hold passports for the team they represent. It doesn’t change the fact that cricket teams ignore them, that the sport itself is trying to get rid of them. They already know they probably won’t be in the next World Cup.
And there they are in Perth. At the WACA. Where professional teams, even the home team, have been humiliated.
The UAE were sent to Australia to acclimatise. They were even sent to Perth. They even played one whole game at the WACA. Before this game they even had one whole day at the WACA to train. They spent the other day travelling from Brisbane.
One game, one day, and then a World Cup match against India. At cricket’s most brutal ground. A ground that many teams have never acclimatised to, and all they had to do was play the world champions.
A bunch of amateurs in a billion-dollar tournament against a team of millionaires – what did cricket think would happen?
It happened. All day. Hook shots so late, the ball had already been forgotten. Batsmen handling swing like it had just been invented. Chandran’s entire innings was like watching a kitten take on a tank. They were at times beaten by pace, swing, seam, spin, lack of pace, straight balls, carrom balls. Oh, and bounce.
The UAE cricketers know about the WACA. Tauqir called it the “most difficult wicket in the world”. They’ve probably seen illegal videos of Curtly Ambrose destroying Australia, or that wacky one where the pitch cracks almost killed the New South Wales 2nd XI. They knew the bounce would be tough. They tried to hook and pull, and at times, very fleeting micro moments, they handled it beautifully. Mostly, it took their wickets, through pace or spin.
They were playing like a team trying to prove a point; they did prove a point, the opposition’s point. Those who want to get rid of teams like UAE will use this match to point out that Associates aren’t good enough. They will ignore the fact that West Indies got beaten in just such a lopsided game against South Africa. They will ignore the fact that UAE showed in their first game that cricket is actually stronger than even those who run it believe. They will ignore the schedule. The fact it was at the WACA. Anything. “They are just not good enough.”
According to Tauqir they had “two good games and one off day”. Associates aren’t allowed bad days. Netherlands had two bad days and lost their ODI status. The Full Member teams could have 200 bad days and only lose games.
While Emirates branding is everywhere at the ground, it is oddly not on the UAE team shirt. Emirates could easily spend 10% of its World Cup sponsorship on the national side. It doesn’t. It could easily have done a deal with the ICC where it asked to hold back some of that money and use it to make “their” side professional. It didn’t. The UAE players are used to this lack of support.
Their bosses don’t always support them. The major cricket teams don’t always support them. Cricket doesn’t always support them.
Today they didn’t support themselves. And while everything else might have led them to this place, it is the fact that they let each other down that will sting the most.
These are men who train every night of the week despite working full time. They are committed to cricket. They are working on their games. They are learning. They are amateurs. They are proud. They are cricketers. They should be angry with themselves.
“The Indian team is more professional,” Tauqir mentioned at one stage. “Professional”. How he must dream for such a day. The Indians are idolised, pampered and rewarded. His men are unwanted, unpaid, uninvited. And today they underperformed.
February 24, 2015
February 23, 2015
February 21, 2015
The Mistakes of Pakistan
Misbah-ul-Haq didn’t drop a catch. Misbah didn’t misfield the ball. Misbah didn’t throw wildly. Misbah didn’t kick the ball. Misbah didn’t bowl head-high full tosses. Misbah didn’t fall over.
Misbah’s one mistake in the field was taking a ball at mid-off, and instead of shying at the stumps as the West Indian batsmen seemed to mock him by walking their single, he held the ball. He saw little point in it with the opposition score at nearly 300. The ball before was a six, there would be two more in that over.
It was a mistake, perhaps, but one of a broken man. And Misbah had not yet batted.
There was a moment earlier when it appeared like a Pakistani fan had entered the field. This man appeared lost, out of shape and middle-aged, and was suddenly thrust into the spotlight when a thick edge circled above him at third man. It was unfair to ask this man to complete a task as tricky as catching a ball struck in his general direction. Later another one would be hit to third man. An unusually tall man of limited coordination was there, perhaps a security guard who has wandered in the wrong direction.
Both balls hit the ground.
Neither were crowd members though; the latter was Mohammad Irfan, of whom fielding seems an unnecessary punishment. And the former was Nasir Jamshed, who made such a mess of a relatively simple catch that he picked up an injury, left the field and didn’t return for the rest of the innings. When he batted, Jamshed would face two balls. In total, he made two mistakes in the 5.1 overs he was actually on the ground. A mistake every 15.5 balls.
Then there was Umar Akmal. Reporting the keeping of any of the Akmals almost feels like bullying. The first time he believed an edge had been taken, he was so nervous he bumped the ball up and only took it again because he’d rebounded it so high it sat up for him. There was no edge on it, though, so who knows what imaginary deflections the ball took in his mind. Later he would drop an actual catch. It was regulation for an international keeper, but not so for Akmal.
Then the slow bowling of Haris Sohail. The ball landed on the pitch, stayed there for a moment and then travelled away very slightly from the batsman. Lendl Simmons is beaten, by the extreme lack of anything on the ball. He tried to cut it; he had enough time to turn around, back away, and cut it on the legside. But that severe lack of pace did him in. And this is the bit where the ball goes into the keeper’s hands, and he oohs, and/ or aahs as it nestles safely into his gloves. This ball barely touched the glove at all. For a minute, in front of thousands at the ground, millions on TV, Pakistan’s wicketkeeper turned into a stage prop. From a distance he looked like a person, but upon closer inspection he was actually just painted on a piece of plywood.
Shortly after to prove he can move again, Akmal runs around the batsman when the ball is blocked in front of him and flicks it back at the stumps. Which almost gives up a run. When Akmal bats, his first mistake is not taken by West Indies, and he doesn’t make another until he is 59.
There was, probably, a time when Shahid Afridi was a top quality fieldsman. That time was hard to remember as he dropped, not one, but two, pull shots. Later, as two fielders in the ring refused to go and pick up a boundary, Afridi stood just as close as them to the ball, but turned his back. Afridi made less mistakes than his entire top order with the bat, but was still out off a full toss.
It was rumored that Grant Luden, the Pakistani fielding coach, tried to resign before this match. It was because some players were not respecting him. They took that disrespect to amazing levels on the field. There were no fewer than seven mistakes by Ahmed Shehzad alone.
Shehzad was at point, the position you put your best fielder. He moved to balls quicker than most of his team-mates; he fumbled them much in the same manner. He batted in their manner also. At one stage, when Shehzad’s hands could take no more beating, he thrust his groin at the ball to stop it. Here was Pakistan’s point fielder, in the ring, with the ball right there, and the West Indies jogged a single as he writhed in agony. There he laid, the perfect representation of Pakistan’s fielding: painful and almost untreatable.
Wahab Riaz’s pitch map looks like he vomited it up rather than bowled it. Before each slower ball it seemed like the Pakistanis had informed West Indies of their decisions. They bowled at the death like their plan was to have no plan. When they did get it right with the ball, they were unable to build any pressure as they had precisely no fielders on the field who could ever stop a single. If the West Indies laid bat on it, it was runs. This one recurring mistake from Pakistan almost led to a run out when Darren Sammy declined a single, shocking Simmons enough that he could have been run out had Sohaib Maqsood picked the ball up and thrown straight. He didn’t pick it up. They didn’t all day.
The West Indies mistake was somehow not making 400, or, 500.
Younis Khan had balls go straight through him at short cover, and then perhaps his best bit of fielding almost ended up terribly when his throw at the stumps hit Darren Bravo on the helmet. When Younis batted, he was gone so quickly it would be hard to call it a mistake. But he has averaged 21 over the last three years in ODIs. His selection in the first place might have been the error.
If you get into Pakistan selection bloopers, you might never come out. You could be drowned in Sarfraz Ahmed queries, or bemused by the missing person case of Fawad Alam, or why on earth Yasir Shah was dropped. Everything Pakistan dropped made them look silly.
There is also the case of Haris, who in his entire career has bowled 68 balls in first-class cricket, and had bowled two forgotten overs in List A matches until the end of 2014. He was Pakistan’s fifth bowler. Ajmal is out. Hafeez is out. At one stage, possibly exhausted from bowling nine overs, he didn’t even see what should have been a simple catch at deep point. It dropped seven feet from him. Bat in hand, he simply guided a ball to gully. Sohail summed up Pakistan: He shouldn’t have been bowling, he was rubbish in the field and he somehow managed to bat worse.
When Misbah was asked whether the batting, the bowling or the fielding was worse, he just smiled and said “Everything.”
Misbah made a mistake when he batted. By then, the mistakes the team had made ensured the match was gone. But his mistake was largely indistinguishable from that 73654 that Pakistan committed before him.
At the press conference, Misbah either used gallows chuckles or cold, hard stares at the floor. The smile was for the ridiculous nature of the question; the stare was for the cold, hard reality of the answer. What is Misbah to do? He tried talking to his bowlers. He tried hiding his fielders. He tried batting for his team. Nothing works. There is nothing to work with in his squad. There is no hope, no form and no magic.
Just mistakes. Pakistan’s mistakes. Misbah’s mistakes. Mistakes.
February 19, 2015
February 18, 2015
Afghanistan’s first day
Michael Jordan. Lionel Messi. Mohammad Nabi.
These are the replica shirts on the back of the Afghan kids in the crowd. Mohammad Nabi walks his team out onto the field. Mohammad Nabi walks his team into the World Cup.
Afghanistan doesn’t have to rely on imported heroes anymore.
Hamid Hassan is strapping. Other words do not do him justice. He has large shoulders. Large hands. Large pecs. Large glutes. He is an immense hunk of muscle.
Hamid Hassan has an Afghanistan colours headband on. Stickers of Afghanistan colours on either cheek. He looks like a fast bowler. He bowls like a fast bowler. And when he completes his first ball, he has started Afghanistan’s World Cup history.
The crowd cheer like mad. Another cricket journalist says, “That’s a big cheer for a dot ball”. It’s not a dot ball. It’s a wide. They have cheered a wide. Their wide. Their first wide in a World Cup.
Hassan is one of the many players in this side who was a refugee. His family did not encourage his cricket. He cites Rocky Balboa as a hero. Hassan is more of a hero than any made-up character.
When his body is fit, he is one of the fastest bowlers in the world. He once took a five-wicket haul in an ODI against UAE. This is his 25th ODI but only his second against a Test-playing nation. The only other one was also against Bangladesh.
Hassan starts very fast. He appeals like crazy against Tamim Iqbal. All the newsrooms in the world use the image of him appealing. Hands out, mouth wide open, a scream at the umpire. Hassan might be appealing, but he is also screaming that Afghanistan are in the World Cup.
The appeal is amazing, and in vain.
Afsar Zazai was in the nets the day before, standing up and taking edges like a pro. His hands are quick, and soft. His footwork looks so sharp. He outshines many Test keepers. Peter Anderson, an assistant coach, asks to give him some full ones outside off. “No, full down leg”. He gloves them all perfectly.
The next day he is in mid-air. Diving. Flying. For a nick. The ball drops on him and he plucks it with his left hand. All cricket fans in the world swoon. But while he is still flying the ball starts to come out, he clutches at his with his right hand. He keeps it in.
According to Sid Monga, “Afsar’s family live in a small house with a temporary roof that can’t offer proper protection from the snow.” His hands are his family’s chance. His hands are magnificent.
Afghanistan have their first wicket in a World Cup, caught Afsar Zazai, bowled Mirwais Ashraf.
In 2009 Afghanistan lost a match in ICC World Cricket League Division Three. There were few in the ground. The games weren’t telecast around the world. The cricket world largely ignored it. But Hassan came off the ground crying. Documentary maker Leslie Knott, part of the team behind Out of the Ashes asked him why. “I have seen people die and I have not shed a tear. But there is something about cricket that gets me here [pointing to his heart]. Cricket is our chance.”
A chance cricket didn’t want to give them. This might be their last World Cup. Cricket has told Afghanistan it doesn’t want it. The ICC originally wanted a ten-team tournament. They have already announced the next two tournaments are for ten teams. The Test-playing nations don’t care about the associates. They pay lip service, but the proof is in the contraction. Under the old ICC rules, Afghanistan couldn’t be a Test playing nation, as they aren’t even a Commonwealth country. They are not one of the special private club.
The members don’t want them in “their” World Cup.
They clearly aren’t here. They couldn’t say that if they were at the ground. They couldn’t say it as the fans join in for chants. As they proudly wave their colours. As they line up to have their faces painted. As they cry with joy. As the slam their drums, jump on seats and scream in delight with every meaningless act.
They couldn’t say that as Shapoor Zadran runs in.
Shapoor is glorious, even in the nets. His run-up is almost double the length of his fellow bowlers’. His run-up is beautiful, his hair is beautiful, his action is beautiful, his follow-through is beautiful, his appeals are beautiful. Beautiful.
At one stage Shapoor bowls a quick short ball outside leg stump. The batsman misses it outside offstump. The keeper takes it in front of first slip’s throat. Any cricket official who tries to limit associate cricket should have to face Shapoor on a bouncy wicket first.
When Afghanistan struggle, they throw him the ball. He bowls fast around the wicket. It is Imran. It is Wasim. It is Shoaib. It is Shapoor.
The crowd chant. Shapoor, Shapoor, Shapoor.
Two quick wickets fall to him. It is quick, it is skillful, it is fast bowling and it is Afghanistan cricket.
Shapoor has been around a long time. When Afghanistan played their first international against Oman 11 years ago, Shapoor was there. So were Asghar Stanikzai, Mohammad Nabi and Nawroz Mangal. Their first recorded match as a side was 14 years ago when they played Nowshehra in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, Grade II, Pool B, Group I. Nawroz Mangal played in that too. Against Oman he made 101.
Nawroz has been a source of pride for 14 years. Before most of his countrymen knew what cricket was. He looks far older and wiser than the 30 years his profile says he is. He has been a captain, a leader, and a rock of Afghanistan cricket. Today when he bats it is 3 for 3. He has been involved in more collapses than any batsman should ever be a part of. Today he tries hard, and stops the flow of wickets, but his 27 isn’t enough.
Andy Moles is trying to produce more players with the sensible nature of Nawroz. He talks of education, and he runs his net sessions like a schoolteacher. He puts the shoes out for the bowlers to aim at with yorkers. He organises who will be in what net. When a bowler oversteps, he forces them to recheck their run up. He shouts things like “last 15 minutes” and “you better go in now if you want a bat”. And all the coaches repeat the “keep your head down” mantras as often as they can.
This is a different Afghanistan than the one we’ve seen before; in the nets and in the middle, they have a new discipline. There are very few crazy slogs or loose balls. They play to plans and try to use their natural skills while curbing their natural enthusiasm. Moles is trying to Steve Waugh the whole side. Cut off the edges, make them harder and make them better.
Greg Buckle wrote in the Daily Telegraph about how Moles was teaching the team cross-seam bowling at training just before this match. He is a cricket educator. Just a few months ago Moles told ESPNcricinfo, “Sometimes you hear a boom go off somewhere when coaching in the middle. You see Black Hawk helicopters flying over the ground, going on missions and coming back. Like coaching in a war movie.”
They have come along way from the Taj Malik days.
Taj Malik was Afghanistan’s first coach. Taj is the embodiment of every club-cricket hero in the world. There is nothing Taj wouldn’t do for Afghanistan cricket. He played coached, administered, smoked and bled for his team. And it was his team. Without Taj’s passion and inspiration, Afghanistan might not be here. He will teach kids on the street, or coach the national side. Taj is the man who walked back home from Pakistan to give his country cricket.
Taj once declared he would throw himself in the Atlantic if Afghanistan didn’t win a lowly ICC tournament. When Afghanistan cricket grew, it outgrew him, but he planted it.
A braggart, and a dreamer. He is Afghan cricket. He is cricket.
Taj is not at the ground, he is back home. But this is his day, as much as it is Afghanistan’s and cricket’s.
On the field their biggest hero Hassan is coming back on for this third spell. His pace has gone. Earlier in the day he was quick, then he tried to field a ball by sliding feet first at it. He missed it. And looked silly. Now his proper quick bowling is more fast-medium than fast. After seven overs he has taken no wickets, and conceded 41 runs.
Bangladesh have a massive partnership, their batting stars are just about to take the game away from Afghanistan. The first ball of Hassan’s eighth over is a horrible full-toss, the next ball is a poor short ball, he looks slow and tired as Shakib Al Hasan picks up ten easy runs. The third ball he finds a dot-ball with a yorker.
The fourth, with Shakib on fire, he bowls a clever slower ball.
After he finishes the ball his big frame turns slowly around and walks back to the mark. His team-mates come in to celebrate his first World Cup wicket. By the next over he has taken another, this time he pumps his fists and has that Rocky spirit in his eyes.
His pace is gone, his body is failing, he is off eight paces, and he is still fighting. The crowd scream Hassan, Hassan, Hassan.
Samiullah Shenwari bowls seven balls, for two runs. Then is taken off. He is a legspinner who has been told three times he is running on the pitch. Afghanistan have overcome war, poverty and devastation, but even they can’t beat the laws of cricket.
In the press conference Andy Moles says he never noticed Shenwari had a problem with running on the pitch. He was probably too busy making sure there were enough balls and the right people were in the right nets.
Shenwari has little follow-through, and even less reason to be on the pitch, but he’s taken off and Afghanistan lose a bowler. A good bowler. One who averages 30 with the ball and goes for less than five an over. With the bat Shenwari looks good. Of all the Afghanistan top order he is the most composed, scores the easiest and moves towards a comfortable half-century.
But he goes for a second, when there is not quite a second there. Brilliant fielding from Sabbir Rahman fires the ball back to the keeper and Shenwari dives. He lands in the turf. His face is down. He doesn’t get up. The replays are looked at by the third umpire. Shenwari’s body language is even more conclusive. He is out. He has run on the pitch, and then been run out. Shenwari’s run is over.
Shenwari leaves Mohammad Nabi at the crease, and little else.
Afghanistan need practically ten an over, but the crowd is cheering for Nabi. Nabi, Nabi, Nabi.
From the book Second XI, Tim Wigmore recounts this tale. “In May 2013, Nabi’s father, a wealthy car salesman, was abducted from his car in the city of Jalalabad. For more than two months, his father’s whereabouts were unknown, despite a concerted effort by the government to find him.”
Nabi’s father was found just before he had to play World Cup qualifying matches against Namibia in Windhoek. With his father only safe for a few weeks Nabi smashed 81* off 45 balls. Then he took 5 for 12. Namibia only managed 18 more runs than Nabi made.
Today Nabi makes them chant his name. When they have no hope, he scores at better than a run a ball, he hits boundaries, his fans say Nabi, Nabi, Nabi. His final shot is one of a man who knows he can’t get them home.
Nabi leaves the ground with a defeated shrug.
Before the game young kids hold a flag in the shadows of the former MCG scoreboard. Their job is to take it out onto the ground. A simple gesture that has been done many times in this World Cup.
The Afghan crowd scream as their flag is taken onto the ground.
A man wearing an Afghanistan shirt, with his face painted in his country’s colours, is quiet. Around him are flags and his colours. There is another man painted from his waist to his hair in Afghan colours. Others are in replica shirts, branded World Cup shirts, homemade Afghanistan flag shirts and traditional Afghan clothing. It is a typical cricket scene. But as that flag moves from under the old MCG scoreboard out onto the ground, the quiet man eyes start to well up.
He’s crying. He’s smiling.
This is just a flag ceremony. Just a cricket game. Just an ODI. Just a World Cup game. It’s also the first time he has seen his Afghanistan walk out in a World Cup.
Shapoor, Shapoor, Shapoor. Hassan, Hassan, Hassan. Nabi, Nabi, Nabi.
Afghanistan lose. Their fans leave the ground with the same face losing fans from all over the world have. That look of emptiness once the hope has gone. A few hug each other. One shouts, “Well done. Afghanistan” at no one in particular.
Then a song starts. It is Joy Bangla. A song of hope and of a new beginning about Bangladesh coming out of war and into brighter days. The Bangladeshis sing along as their players do a victory lap. A few Afghanistan fans dance along as they leave the ground.
It’s not their song. It’s not their win. It will forever be their day. Afghanistan, Zindabad.
February 17, 2015
February 16, 2015
Blue and Green
Blue, with a streak of green. It is unmistakable.
Everywhere you look, the colours of the country are on show. The longer you look, you start noticing the green dots amid the blue ocean. Green and blue is on everyone, everywhere.
The entire ground is dressed in colours. One man wears an Indian flag court jester hat, a traditional Indian vest over an Indian cricket shirt. One young Pakistani seems to be wearing two Pakistan shirts. A mother straightens the Indian shirt of a little girl in her sling. There is a group of fans who have come from Zimbabwe, they wear a shirt of their own design, part India, part Zimbabwe. An older woman wears a fashionable green skirt, which is the exact same colour of the Pakistan 99 World Cup kit.
One man claims to have not worn his India shirt in 30 years. This despite the fact that he does not even look 30, and that coloured shirts weren’t really available then.
Sports fans love a uniform. Sports fans love to belong. This isn’t about sport. This is about identity. This isn’t about sport, or citizenship or even nationality. This is about culture. The India or Pakistan on the chest is a statement of who they are. What they are. Their colour. Them.
“The spirit of this game”, according to Karl Telfer of the Kaurna Clan “unites us”.
It has united them right here in Adelaide. People have come from Singapore, Mumbai, Denver, Lahore, London, San Francisco, Melbourne, Sydney, Florida, Dallas, Michigan and Mombasa. Not for the glory of cricket, but for the glory of India and Pakistan.
The crowd is made up of dental practitioners, accountants, CEOs, CTOs and engineers. Some have paid over six-hundred dollars just to come over from Sydney. One man tells me, “Oh, thousands, I couldn’t even add it all up, and I’m only seeing this one game”.
This one game.
“I’ve come from Dallas”, says one woman. Are you going to another game? “No, just this one”. Her husband then tells her she is going to another game. There are no other games.
There are two types of fans here, and they are often sitting together. A smart dressed man in a turban and smart casual light blue shirt sits next to his mate who is dressed in a Pakistan shirt. The Pakistani fan proudly tells me that he came all the way from Singapore for this game, and that if Pakistan weren’t playing India, he wouldn’t have bothered making the trip. His friend in the smart shirt is from Mumbai, and he would have come regardless. Mr Mumbai is a cricket fan, Mr Singapore is an India-Pakistan fan.
There is a difference. Aman has flown in from Melbourne. Recently, he took his mother to see India play Australia in Tests. She was bored and showed no interest. He tells me that she is loving today. She doesn’t know about the hashtags of #realfinal, or #wewontgiveitback.
She doesn’t know about Mohit Sharma’s late call-up or why Umar Akmal is keeping . She doesn’t know any of the players. She doesn’t need to. For her – for many, in fact – this isn’t about the players. After the game, she won’t be starting Facebook memes about Suresh Raina or RTing funny photos of Pakistanis. She will just be happy or sad.
Many in the crowd are like this. They cheer a ball that Dhawan has played horribly, because it gets a run. The quality of a Pakistani wicket doesn’t change the sound made by the fans.
There are children here as well. Prams are carried up the stairs to seats high up in the stands. The children are too young to understand where they are, or what they are watching. A two-year-old clutches at his father with his hand over his face. He will hardly see a ball. He wouldn’t understand even if he did. Every Pakistani cheer startles him. Every Indian cheer terrifies him. In years to come, his dad will proudly tell him, “You were there”. The memory will be implanted if it has to be.
The new generation isn’t like the last. The younger people don’t have the same level of animosity. They want their team to win. They want it passionately. Loudly. But half of the crowd seems to have at least one friend from the rival-colour clan. A Facebook friend, or a real friend. They study with them. They work with them. They live together. They marry each other.
“Of course the initial jingoism of these games has worn off on me by now”, Alokpi says. “And given how distant I feel from all the players on the Indian team, I’m not really sure I’d be able to muster enough enthusiasm to even root for India all the way in this World Cup. But put me in a room full of Indian fans watching the game and suddenly you might find me eyes bulging and yelling ecstatically, completely caught in a total frenzy.”
When the national anthems are played, almost all the younger people stand for both anthems. Only a few of the older ones sit when it isn’t their anthem. The younger fans film both anthems on their smart phones. These are middle, mostly middle class. It is a different kind of fan. A different kind of fanaticism. They dance like crazy just like the old fans, but they also post to Facebook that they are dancing like crazy. They want to be part of it, they want people to know they are part of it.
Away from the ground, on online forums like Reddit and Quora, people are still part of it.
“You can only know how deeply a single match affected the nation by being a part of it” ashi31 says. “As a muslim nation, the Pakistan cricket and prayers go hand in hand. By the sixth and seventh wicket most of us were busy praying for a miracle rather than paying attention to the match.”
NiX_Nabilz writes, “When Yuvraj Singh was bowled first ball by Wahab at Mohali, you would not believe that not fire crackers, but bullets were fired in the air just like a territory has been conquered, just like a battle has been won.”
“Our mom came and handed over the tea to my brother as usual,” Vinesh Thota writes. “And then our god Sachin was bowled at 93 by Abdul Razzaq. He threw that tea cup out of the window and shouted I will never have tea in my life.”
“People who like sport remember their lives better than those who don’t,” Dan Harris explains in his piece about losing his wife and gaining the Ashes, in the Nightwatchman magazine.
Pakistan-India games are moments in people’s lives they remember forever. Chachachoudhary watched them on a 16-inch TV at a Saras milk parlour. Shriman_Ripley prayed not just for an Indian victory, but for the Indian victory that would inspire his uncle to buy him a samosa. Justarslan celebrated a victory with naan and haleem. Others had family picnics, walked out on job interviews, saw it in a basement, were the only Pakistani surrounded by 70 Indians, sat in a bar, went back home. There is also Kamalfan, who watched it in room 214 with his mate Viki. “I didn’t know he won’t be there for the next India Pak game.”
A game of cricket, a communal life experience. The country remembers it, the culture remembers it, and even those who don’t know how it started feel it all.
“It’s about the history, I don’t real know what actually happened, but the history is there,” a 17-year-old girl says. She tells her friend that her plan is to scream until she loses her voice. She wears her colours. She screams. She will remember this.
The Indian fans raise two fists in unison as the last catch is taken. Behind the stands, many mothers stand holding sleeping children, rocking prams, and one bench has a woman stroking her two kids asleep. She cranes her neck back to look through the entrance to the main stand as the people in blue scream.
This is her memory. One day it will be her kid’s memories as well. This is a cricket match. This is a moment in millions of blue and green lives. This game.
