Cricket, if you live in Pakistan and you cannot bowl and bat then you have wasted your childhood, whether it is pleasant outside or raining, or chilly or its sun scorching, you must have played cricket with your neighborhood friends, in streets, in fields and in proper grounds, such is the Pakistanis’ love, passion and addiction for cricket, no other sports gets the same amount of Pakistani attention as does the cricket. In stories we have read girls waiting for a prince charming to come along and take them with him on his horse, but today Pakistani girls go insane for cricketers, irrespective of whether these girls know cricket or not.
But considering recent conditions and situation that how our neighbor has brought politics and shame to this sport, is not it time we Pakistanis stop worshipping cricket and cricketers? What is the point of giving chance to cricketers to make debuts when they are in their late thirties? Irfan, Mohammand, Saeed Ajmal, Zulfiqar Babar are examples of such cricketers who wasted their energetic youth time waiting to be part of national team. I mean when was the last time when we saw someone like Muhammad Ammir in his early teens being picked up by selectors to play for National team? Does not this trend of inducting cricketers in their late thirties reflect that domestic cricket is facing severe problems and cricket at school level has vanished? Whatever we have got in our National team name me one young cricketer who is in his teens or twenties and he has the technique and has been a consistent performer?
The purpose here is to highlight the missing seriousness, vision and attention to other sports, Pakistan is full of people who if given proper training and chances can do wonders in sports. Why we still want cricket and cricketers to overshadow our other sports and players? Haven’t we seen Squash and hockey being destroyed and Pakistanis left unqualified for world events? Or we have become addictive to fiasco where our neighbor can exploit us for cricket series? The recent series of meetings with neighbors and media announcements from both sides has left Pakistanis like me wondering, WTH when we will refuse and restore our honor or money out of that single series is that important that we are hell bent on playing with someone who backed off from their initial agreement?
I think it is high time that we invest in other sports spend some money bring in coaches from around the world. I believe we can produce world class footballers, hockey players, athletes, bodybuilders, lawn tennis players, squash players, kabbadi players, weight lifting champs and hell lot of sportsmen / women and athletes. Our participation in Olympics as sport loving and playing nation is zilch. I say to restore our honor we will have to get rid of this addiction for cricket and bring cricket back at par with other sports, leave cricket rivalry with India and outmatch them in other areas of sports. This will help rebuild our image and world will recognize us a peaceful sports loving nation. Our government seriously needs to think and plan for this, I say enough with this timewasting, full of politics and unreal sportsmen sport called cricket and let other real sports be our passion and recognition.
@Zibago @django @AZADPAKISTAN2009 @WAJsal @Indus Falcon