A ‘Mauqa Mauqa’ to celebrate – Pakistan finally wins a match

A match that both teams were trying their level best to lose, Pakistan failed to shoot themselves in the foot for a change and managed to beat the might of Zimbabwe.

The day was set for Shahid Afridi to shine on his 35^th birthday. Hey, if Meera is still 25, why can’t Afridi be 35? I am still 16 by the way. Afridi’s age is a great metaphor for the entire country; it is stuck in reverse.

The day started with news that Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was going to play for the team, sending the entire nation (or just me actually) in a frenzy wondering why he was being picked for to play. Maybe, it was just Nasir Jamshed but the fact that he looks exactly like Rahat Fateh Ali confused the selectors.

Another selection decision announced by Misbahul Haq at the toss was that Younus Khan was not playing, leading to everyone dancing on Rahat Fateh Ali Khan songs.



Even Misbah could not hide his snicker while saying “unfortunately”. Rumour has it that he laughed for 10 straight minutes after going back to the dressing room.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

The day started wonderfully for Jamshed, who got his first run in a World Cup ever. However, that was to be his last run in the match, and hopefully ever.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

You have to admire Jamshed’s precision though; he managed to pick the only fielder on the leg side with his shot.

Things only got worse when Ahmad Shahzad joined him in solidarity in the dressing room. Both Shahzad and Afridi got out as if they had plans to take birthday selfies in the dressing room.

Pakistan cricket team was playing as if they were paying a tribute to the Netflix House of Cards series by falling like one.

Misbah demonstrated why he is known as ‘Tuk Tuk’ by having a worse strike rate than storm troopers.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

At one point, Ramiz Raja was sitting in the commentary box, sympathising the Hawk-eye because it showed no shots played. Many spectators had forgotten what a boundary looked like.

The Zimbabwe bowler Tendai Chatara was particularly bowling well, leading many to wonder why Cheetara left Thundercats in the first place to join the Zimbabwe cricket team.

The experience was only made worse by constant ads in the middle with a boy exclaiming,

“Dekho, kitna acha khel raha hai Misbah”

(Look, how well Misbah is playing!)

This led the nation to wonder what drugs that boy was on.

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That ad explains what is wrong with the attitude of our cricket team. There is an ad of the South African cricket team going to a boy’s house to make him feel special, and play cricket with him whereas Afridi finds some kids who he feels does not know him and asks Umar Akmal to show them who is boss and beat them.

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“Abhay Umar, ye bachay humay nahin jantay. Aao inko haratay hein aur batate hay hum kaun hay!”

(Umar, these kids don’t know us. Let’s beat them and show them who we are!)

Even the Afridi bubblegum ad should rebrand itself to,

“Boom Boom runs ko bhula do”

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The ads were genuinely more interesting than the match. PTV Sports knew that, which is why they cut to the ads as soon as the last ball left the bowler’s hands, and did not resume the match till the first ball of the next over hit the bat.

The Pakistan cricket team continued losing wicket. We have even lost our unpredictability factor; we now know our batting will collapse in every match.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

It looked like we would not even get 200. The broadcaster only made it worse by regularly flashing scores of 300 plus scored by other teams to make Pakistani cricket fans jealous.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

I believe guards at Guantanamo Bay now show terrorists our batting innings to torture them.

The only silver lining is to follow the Nasir Jamshed (parody) Twitter account.



I wonder how Bob Woolmer would’ve felt reading that tweet.

The only hope Pakistani fans had was in fixing emerging scandals so we could take solace in the fact that our cricket team is not genuinely this bad.

Wahab Riaz’s innings at the end gave us some hope going into bowl, Zimbabwe took inspiration from the Akmal brothers and dropped a number of his catches. Makes us wonder if Riaz shared the jacket he got with the stash of money in London with them.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

However, our bowling came to our rescue, as always. It was the Mohammad Irfan show.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

It was not always straight forward but when does the Pakistan cricket team ever make it easy for their cricket fans? They should be sued for inducing all these mini-heart attacks.

There were the mandatory dropped catches by Akmal. In fact, he even added a new entry to his list of mistakes by not reviewing a caught-behind appeal that suspiciously looked like it was out, giving the Zimbabwe batsman some relief.

Photo: Shehzad Ghias

Makes you wonder what Sarfaraz Ahmed has done to not play; maybe Misbah is a follower of the Tapasweeya in the PK movie.

Even Shahzad caught one, pushing up his selfies-taken to catches-taken ratio to 7,804 to 1 in favour of the selfies.

All is well that ends well, and in the end we won for a change. Let’s not make it this hard next time boys! There is only so much your fans can take!

Bring it on South Africa! Actually don’t bring it on too much, be nice to us and let us beat you.

Please?

Pretty please?