Why watch Pak play

Before Pakistan went down under, I believed they were a better team than Australia. I was wrong, as Pakistan was not a team, and their motley group of ball throwers and ball hitters soon started to resemble a badly funded Russian circus. Still I watched, not so much in hope for them, but because of the senior most player in the team.

Not MoYo, not Younis, not Afridi, (was he even there?), but big lips, Umar Akmal. He played in spite of the idiocy around him; innings after innings he was the only reason any Pakistani would dare watch his team play.

Today, when Pak played Australia, they were determined to lose again, but for Umar Akmal. They bat him as low as 6 so the millionaires can bankrupt the team, and then, hand the lost venture to Umar – hey kid, we’re in the red, can you do something? And boy, can he do something – he will play shots you forgot are played, he will run for a tailender, he will run for you, he will run for Pakistan.

It’s been a rotten year for cricket, what with the muck around, almost unwatchable. Good there’s a player like Umar Akmal, you can write about the cricket again. And not the politics that threaten to destroy it.