What happened to Pakistan’s Cricket “Junoon”

The two months February and March were deeply anticipated by every cricket fan as the cricket world cup was to be played between these two months. For Pakistan this world cup held immense importance as our team was under many conspiracies, our team members like M. Asif, M. Amir and the captain of our team Salman Butt were accused of spot fixing in a test match against England. Later in the trial they were found guilty and then they were banned from cricket. This conspiracy was a great astonishment to every Pakistani and everybody felt humiliated of their act. Before the world cup huge campaigns were started by the media of almost every country to support their team and that created a huge hype in the cricket world and the fans.

When this world cup commenced not many Pakistanis were expecting a good presentation from our team and were of the opinion that our team will even not make into the quarterfinals but in spite of this everyone started supporting the team and hoped for the best. Even the cricket experts were saying that Pakistan will not be able to make into the quarterfinals and their performance will be dismal because the team lost its three key players and their abrupt suitable replacement will be very tricky for Pakistan. As the world cup commenced arrangements were made to show the world cup on big screens and huge events were planned to screen the match live.

In the start of the world cup I wasn’t even expecting our team to perform well but I was proved wrong by our team’s dazzling performance against Sirilanka in their second game of the world cup when our line-up managed to beat the host of the world cup on their own soil. It was a great accomplishment by the team and this triggered the fury of world cup craze in which everyone got mad. Later Pakistan beat Canada and then came then Pakistan’s fate had demise and Pakistan lost a match against New Zealand but our team played well. The last group match was between Pakistan and Australia. Australia was triumphant for more than 30 consecutive games and no doubt that Pakistan was an underdog in the match but once again Pakistan shined brilliantly and won the match against Australia that was the time when every cricket expert started praising Pakistani team’s performance. There were also many good matches in the group stages which set the course up for the world cup’s later stages like when England lost a match against Ireland and which was a great jolt so the world cup initiated a cricket fever.

Then started the later stage of the world cup and the most anticipated of the all, the quarter finals, so the cricket fever was at its peak. The top 8 teams were capable of making into the quarters. Pakistan toped the group and was to play with West Indies which was 4^th in the second group and the last one to qualify for the quarter finals. Evidently our team was the favourite for this match. The match was played on 23^rd march and as it was a national holiday because Pakistan’s resolution was passed on 23^rd march 1940. On this day I thought of watching the match with my cousins but was a bit late to reach their home but the roads were free from cars and there wasn’t much traffic on the road, people were indoors watching the match. The match was easily won by Pakistan by 10 wickets.

Then came the most thrilling match of the world cup the second semi-final between archrivals India and Pakistan. There was about a week’s time between the match and media of both the countries started declaring it as a war Indian media declared “Maha Yudh” greater war. In this week before the match every Pakistani channel, every person was talking about the match even the political shows were having a discussion on the match. The match became the most anticipated match of the world cup and some people regarded it even bigger than the final. So huge arrangements were made by people to watch the match in groups. The match started and Pakistani bowlers did very well to restrain India’s huge batting line up at only 265 runs. At that moment everyone thought that Pakistan will improvise the pure batting conditions and win the match even I thought that Pakistan had the match in the bag but it was a shock to me when I saw that Pakistan lost the match by 29 runs but still I praised my team because it performed very well under the conditions and also that Pakistan was an underdog in the tournament but still we managed sneak into the semis and were able to challenge a team like India which were hot favourites for the world cup and eventually they managed to win the world cup. So in this manner the cricketing junoon in Pakistan ended and I don’t think that many Pakistanis saw the final match which India won easily.  

M.Adeel Tariq

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