Being a Pakistani, it is almost impossible for you to have never had an immense craze for cricket, at least once in your life. No matter how many times the men in green break hearts with their unpredictable performances and you swear never to watch them again, you still do.
So when a Pakistani goes abroad, you can bet this stays the same. You can take Pakistanis out of Pakistan, but you can’t take the cricket out of them. This is the story of a group of Pakistani students, living and studying in a university in Turkey, and coming together every once in a while to watch a game of cricket. And that cricket game is always a classic India-Pakistan encounter.
I moved to Ankara, Turkey, to study Communication in the summer of 2013. Along with me, were a few dozen more Pakistanis that year and many more came in the two years which followed.
A Pakistani student studying abroad shares his experience of organising a live Pakistan-India match screening for others also away from home like him
In our fourth semester, in February 2015, with a Pakistan-India World Cup clash, at the Adelaide Oval, Australia, looming, a few of my friends decided that it was time to do something that had never been done at our university before — arrange a screening for a cricket match. We enquired about a possible location on campus but we soon found that the biggest obstacle was to be something we had not given much thought to up till now — time difference.
You see, Australia is seven hours ahead of Turkey. The match was supposed to start at five in the morning in Turkey. Wherever and whoever we asked at our university, they listened until the time was mentioned and then the answer we received was a stern ‘no.’ Eventually, two of our friends, named Arsalan and Suvas, found an empty room in the library for which we obtained permission to use as our match-screening venue. The rules were simple: it’s the library, make no noise!
With the event now confirmed and the match only a few days away, we proceeded to advertise the game. A friend made posters and we put them up all over campus — on bus stops, inside buildings and on notice boards. ‘India-Pakistan, cricket World Cup group stage match — LIVE SCREENING!’
Even though there are many Pakistanis studying at our university, we didn’t know how many would actually show up. The build-up to the match also involved a lot of banter with some of the Indian students who studied alongside us at the same university. There were memes and jokes posted on their Facebook walls with ‘#MauqaMauqa’ hash tags, hoping against hope that this would be the match where Pakistan finally ends the World Cup jinx against India and we would all be there, together, to see it.
Up until that point, we had lost all nine previous 50-over World Cup and World T20 meetings with India. We firmly believed that this would be the day we ended that run, because this time there were a bunch of Pakistanis sitting abroad, who had stayed up all night watching their country’s match with great fervor. I really believed that day that we would finally end the World Cup losing streak. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
The invitations to the match had been extended to every desi (a term usually used for Pakistanis, Indians or Bangladeshis) and Turk we knew. Some Turks had come to watch — one or two dragged by their Pakistani friends — despite having no idea or any passion at all for cricket.
One very close Indian friend of ours had been jokingly informed “agar Pakistan jeeta tou tu gaya, aur agar India jeeta tou phir tou waisay bhi teri khair nahi [if Pakistan wins, you’re gone. And if India wins, you’re gone anyways].” I can’t say much for our older generation, but most of today’s youth from both countries don’t have a great deal of friction towards each other.
After staying up the entire night before the match, at around four in the morning, about 10 of us carried a projector, some chairs, a laptop and a table to the previously empty room, not knowing how many people would show up. Gradually, as the start of the match grew closer, a sea of green and white started walking in through the door as we sat preparing. Ten, 20, then 40 people showed up in the first wave, all Pakistani cricket kit-wearing supporters. And this was all at five in the morning.
Soon, I realised that not only would we be needing more seats, but that there was no way we’d be able to follow the librarian’s conditions. The realisation of the latter set in just before the match began when all Pakistanis in the room stood up to sing the national anthem. That remains one of the most spine-tingling and emotional moments of my time in Turkey to date. That was also the first time a security guard came into the room and told us in Turkish to ‘keep it down’, and it wasn’t going to be the last time he did so.
We watched as Pakistan lost the toss and all the experts sitting in the room (as we all become when watching a cricket game) gave their two cents that this wasn’t a good sign and we’d already lost an advantage. Superstitions and lucky charms were in full flow, as many tried to ‘fix’ the match from thousands of miles away. Virat Kohli played the role of main antagonist to perfection, recipient of many-a-choice words from everyone sitting in the room, as he scored a century helping India set Pakistan a target of just over 300. I remember Sohail Khan’s hat-trick ball got a drum roll from everyone in the room but ultimately to no avail.
As the Pakistan innings began, other desis, who had preferred to get a good night’s sleep instead of joining us at the crack of dawn to watch some cricket, started to file into the room. In total, we were maybe a hundred people. Some of us who hadn’t slept all night, instigated by Pakistan’s faltering run-chase, were getting cranky.
But with Pakistan, you just never know. And being a Pakistani cricket fan, you learn to keep hope as long as Shahid Afridi is yet to bat. You learn to expect the unexpected. You listen to your heart, and shush your brain.
After a run-a-ball 22, Afridi was dismissed and with that, many started walking out with despondent looks on their faces. We stayed for the final nail in the coffin, as Misbah stayed, the last one out, the lone warrior fighting till the end, the captain going down with his ship.
And we watched, faces in hands, silence broken every now and then by another person walking out of the room, swearing at the team. Eventually, the match, mercifully, ended and we packed all our stuff up and started to march out. In one final show of defiant patriotism, about 10 of us, in our sleepy states, stopped next to a fountain on campus on our way back to the dormitories and sang our rendition of the national anthem one last time.
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to watch a Pakistan-India World T20 match in Barcelona, Spain, with an Indian friend of mine. This was the match that took place earlier this year at the Eden Gardens, in Kolkata. Again, Virat Kohli was the villain as India cruised to yet another World Cup victory over Pakistan. I cooked chicken karahi for myself and my Indian friend, who I had invited over to my apartment, to watch the match. Needless to say, the karahi helped lessen the pain of defeat a little bit that day.
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