I have always been a passionate cricket fan. Over the years I have cried, laughed, jumped, danced for our team. I pulled off nighters to watch matches (heck I didnt even pull off that many nighters for my studies). And I thought recently I somewhat mellowed down and did not FEEL about cricket the way I used to.
But mindblowing events of past few weeks, starting from that fateful day at Oval and ending (hopefully ending) with Shoaib And Asif’s exclusion from Champions trophy, have brought me right behind my team. Just when our team was getting its star performers back and we had unearthed a true gem in Mohammad Asif, lady luck has deserted us and these all combine to form worst chain of events in our history (even those unity and match fixing issues seem distant now)
I am heartbroken, disappointed and sad for watever has happened but one positive aspect of all this is that Pakistan will have their backs to the wall and they need backing from every true fan. So lets get behind our team, support them whole heartedly and unconditionally. I know we might get thrashed but I can see them giving lion-hearted, united and never-say-die performances in every match they play. There is light at the end of the tunnel, they just gotta reach there asap.
Long live Pakistan and Pakistan cricket I am behind every member (each and every one, even sami if it comes to that) of our team to once again make us proud of their performances and bring us out of this turbulent period.
p.s Forgive me if I did not make any sense. I am quite emotional right now.
I feel bad for Woolmer. Three years worth of work, all gone to waste. I think the only thing still keeping him to coach Pakistan is the wish to not leave before his contract was up.
After the defeat in 2003 world cup, we went through a painful purge in hopes that if we start afresh, we would have built up a solid, and PROFESSIONAL squad by the next world cup. That seemed to be suceeding until the England tour. It's no use going into the could-haves and should-haves, but I believe that sending Asif and Rana to play county cricket just before our tour started was what started the whole chain of events. Had they not gotten injured, they would not had have to use the drugs (Asif anyway), and who knows, it might have led to different results in test matches that would not end at the ball tempering situation.
I am sad and dejected, but also hoping that this situation becomes a blessing in disguise. That with their backs to the wall, Pakistan team fight like "tigers," knowing that expectations of them are very low anyway (thus reducing the pressure on them).
I am also afraid. Although the team consists of eleven players, it's the CORE of 4-7 players that really makes the team what it is. With Inzi, Shoaib, and Asif out, our core has vanished overnight. Can a Yousuf-Younis-Afridi-Razzaq core beat "teams" like Sri Lanka, Australia, South Africa? I pray so.
Absolutely no need, my dear. I can sense the bouquet of emotions and bag of feelings that went behind in creating the content in this thread, and I am positive it will be more than welcome from every cricket fan in this community. We all have experienced a spate of up-and-down joyride in this ferris wheel that you and me are a part of. Some events are marked in history pages with nothing more than a line of forgettable footnote, some are discussed even as of this day.
Even the kind of pessimistic behavior that I, most of the time, engulf myself in, I cannot help but feel very optimistic about the future of Pakistan cricket. I keep reassuring myself that it will be over soon, we will be strong as ever. One of the quotes I remember that fits in perfectly in this situation: "What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."
We will rise again, Insha-Allah. There might be a few more hiccups and 'breaking news' along the way, but as a nation, we have to learn from yesterday, live for today and hope for tomorrow.
Very spiritually uplifting and morally influential thread!
Saby,
You’ve truly backed up your “support the team, not the trends” statement. Thumbs up to you! About the support, it stands … however its been outplayed by disappointment and frustration. All i wanted from the current team was to bring back the world cup glory and it seemed very near ; but i think we crumpled under pressure. The sad part is that even if ppl like you and others stand up and give our team full support, there are thousands (if not more) for each of us who are gonna show their utmost disgust with the team and will try to bring down the team. Unfortunately, the main stream media will promote the opinions of an average fan and that is what our team will get to read/hear. I just hope we had a way to send them notes. I think everyone deserves a second chance; this team has given us so much in the last 2-3 years and I guess its about time some fans return the favor and encourage them to rise up again, which inwardly be a favor for ourselves as we are the ones who are gonna keep watching cricket regardless. I pray that we get through these tough times.
pakistan's bowling line up which has won them important series against india,england and srilanka will be finished if these guys get banned.i still need to know more how it all happened when were these tests conducted
There's some consolation in the fact that both Champions Trophy and the World Cup are ODI tournaments and not Test matches. No matter how benign your bowling is, teams batting first don't manage (most of the times) scores greater than 270/280, and there is still enough fire power in batting lineup to chase those down. When batting first, we can just hope that our batsmen score above par, and Afridi-Malik-Hafeez's spin bowling can cause severe problems for other
teams.
My support for the team has been declining after recent events too, but each time I remind myself of the passion that guys like Rana, Afridi, Youhana bring to the team and the amazing unity and sucess the team (without Shoaib)showed whilst touring India last time I always get behind them.
We may have lost our best 2 bowlers for now but we still have great players like Mohammed Sami with us, so all is not lost :D
^^ Yeah supposrt the guys who didnt do anything wrong. Lets support the people who never had superstart attitude (Younis, Yousif, Malik, Kamran, Rana, Razaaq), these are the people who are giving their best for Pak and we have to support them.
After all Cricket is just a sport,a form of Entertainment,
And we r much richer in this aspect than all other cricketing nations that our team not only provides entertainment on the field, but more so off the field,
The World is jealous of us in this regard,
Let them be so,HaHaHa
Yea man whatever is going on, we have to stay right behind these boyz, they are our pride and honestly in situtions like this I feel that I feel more as if we are a nation because we have to get together, we have no choice, this situation brings us closer, Long Live PAKISTAN!
This is what Pakistani cricket is to me. We keep getting into controversies after controversies, but the joy our team has provided us over the years cannot be discounted. We have so many cynical shmucks on the board (I don’t need to name the prcks, they know who they are), but it’s great to see a post like the one by Saby. Good luck and Godspeed, Pakistani team.
Unexpected circumstances & events trigger whirlpool changes, some turn into
tornados and some into pleasant results.
Eying postively I see these past few events and now the dope testing scenerio as an eye opener that can transform our gaming minds to another fresh level. I expect and hope that inshallah some thing good will happen from the later.
Shoaib & Asif will continue to be our mainstay and missing out on ICC champion’s trophy will not and should not affect their prepairdness for the WC. I just hope that the collateral damage is minimum inshallah.
I am behind every member (each and every one, even sami if it comes to that) of our team to once again make us proud of their performances and bring us out of this turbulent period.