Amazing ambience, camaraderie and cricket

This was another March, the antithesis of March 2009 when a terrorist attack on a visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earned Pakistan the stigma of a 'no-go zone' for international teams. That is no more the case. In the words of International Cricket Council (ICC) CEO David Richardson, Pakistan is moving in the right direction to completely bring international cricket back to the country. "There was a perception of Pakistan that it is dangerous, which has now changed," he told reporters at Karachi's National Stadium where on Sunday night the last match of the HBL PSL-4 came to a glorious end. Some 33,000 spectators, including a number of political and military high-ups and millions in other cities and around the world witnessed the final between Quetta Gladiators and Peshawar Zalmi. The PSL-4 started in the United Arab Emirates, where 26 games were played before the action was shifted to Pakistan. Originally, three of the eight matches were scheduled to be played in Lahore, followed by five in Karachi, but all games were moved to Karachi because of logistical concerns caused by India's growing belligerence. Therefore, adequate security measures had been put in place. But there was hardly a sign that the spectators, which included quite a number of women and children, were scared. They enjoyed cricket, because as Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board Ehsan Moni says, "it is one game that brings happiness and light in life". Perhaps, the ambience and camaraderie permeating the stadium would have been more joyful; it was constrained in deference to the victims of terrorist attacks on two mosques in New Zealand. Isn't it ironically paradoxical that as one country, Pakistan, is shedding the curse of terrorism, another, New Zealand, is being taken over by the demons of hatred and death. And, no less oddly it is the sportsmen and not the politicians or internationalists who opened the door of international cricket to Pakistan. Nearly 40 foreign cricketers opted to visit Karachi for the eight PSL games following the earlier played leg in the UAE. And the one who really turned the Karachi match into a harbinger of international cricket was the Barcelona legend Carles Puyol.
Given the success in obtaining perfect ambience for PSL-4 there is every reason that its next edition be held in Pakistan from the word go. On the ground almost normal conditions were always there to host international cricket, and a few such matches did take place, but there were the India-influenced lobbies who stood in the way. That should be in the past now. Should any team refuse to travel to this country in future it would have to give valid reasons for its decision. The kind of security arrangements put in place for the Karachi match should dismiss reservations on the part of naysayers. The government has now decided that as for the PSL all its editions in future would be played in Pakistan. Talking to reporters after the match in Karachi - also witnessed, among other high-ups, by Army Chief General Bajwa - the ISPR chief Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor conveyed that future PSL matches would be held also in Miranshah, the tribal city retrieved by the forces from the control of Taliban, and Azad Kashmir capital, Muzaffarabad, which is not very far from the Line of Control. In other words, every city of Pakistan is absolutely safe and secure for all sports, including cricket.