Due to a lack of anything mildly related to cricket in our near future (our tour in England was considered a ‘Home Series’), it appears that we now have an ample amount of free time on our hands.In order to recover from the obviously emotional and yes, physical turmoil of the scandal, I feel that is imperative that we decisively re-allocate our inherent obsessive sporting fanaticism to a new sport to obsess over. With rising unemployment and rampant power outages, it’s not like we have much to occupy our time. The question is what?
Kabaddi: Men grabbing other men in a mud pit.
Verdict: We’ll pass – something about watching a sport that focuses on fat semi-nude men lacks appeal. Women on the other hand…
Wrestling: Muscular men scampering around in their fashion forward tighty whiteys, somersaulting from awkward angles and pretending to get hurt. We could excel in the bravado and blustering aspect of the sport … oops, it’s not allowed to be called that anymore
Verdict: We’ll pass. Apparently a chamaat doesn’t qualify as a finishing move and evidently, Pakistani athletes make awful liars. That and the Indian-born great Khali is a rather scary chap.
Racing: We are a nation that loves to race our cars, motorbikes, rickshaws and donkey carts. On the face of it, the sport speaks to our souls with its shady rules, loose morals and hypocrisy.
Verdict: We’ll pass, we can’t afford the insurance or the technical infrastructure required, besides petrol is expensive!
Polo: Involves riding a horse, and hitting a ball with a large stick. It appears to be a worthy successor to cricket, particularly with the advantage of a horse doing all the work while we merely chill on a saddle and swat our sticks around.
Verdict: We’ll pass, we’re not Mongols and roaming around on horseback really isn’t our thing.
Golf: Haha, just kidding.
Dance dance revolution: Our wedding culture oriented showcases have already developed an envious array of already trained talent to excel in this vicious, competitive sport.
Verdict: We’ll pass, we don’t need another Punjabi dominated team. Besides, we don’t put our women on display.
Hockey: Former World Champions, now we humiliate ourselves when ever we play.
Verdict: Don’t be silly, we suck at hockey, the only hockey sticks Pakistanis generally own are used for self-defense.
Squash: A sport steeped in the legacy of both Jansher and Jehangir Khan. Ever since then we’ve let it fizzle out….because we don’t actually care.
Verdict: We’ll Pass, we barely liked it even when we dominated it.
Football: Such a beautiful game, one where everyone already makes so much money that match fixing is out of the question and the idea of performance adjusting borders is wishful thinking. We can, however, alter the performance of the football world by restricting our exports of top quality footballs to the world.
Verdict: We’ll … be perfect at it! Now all we have to do is find folks who play the game as ardently as we watch it. In order to speed up the process let’s throw some money at some Brazilian urchins.
Tennis: A sport plagued by very different scandals which involve players not shaking hands, cursing at referees and mistakingly smashing the balls into the ball boys; it obviously has massive entertainment value. How fantastic would Wimbledon Centre Court look filled with several thousand rabid Pakistani fans chearing for ‘our boys’ all the while sipping on lassi.
Verdict: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Welcome to a world inspired by Aisamul Haq. Not only has the lad played exceptionally well, he has also teamed up with a rather dashing Czech partner. Kveta Peschke will satiate our demand for gori bahus as well as enhance our trade ties with the Czech Republic. Win, win situation. Particularly so if she’s good enough to snare us a few titles, with Aisam of course. Now if that doesn’t work out, maybe Shoaib Malik will let him play with Sania…
We are all looking for the perfect Pakistani sport, a sport whose representatives will make us proud of our sporting culture. But now, we finally have an athlete we can proudly claim as our ambassador. Thanks, Aisam.
Murtaza Ali Jafri is a Karachi-based banking professional and blogger. He believes in free markets and freedom, and wishes men could get more of the latter.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
“maybe he will let him play with Sania”, definitely below the belt comment
Dear writer, You like it or not sport ( Any sport) is much more bigger than the sports persons. Its the individual who should be implanted with a sportsmanship like good manners in the initial stage of the life. If any individual can be trained as a sucide bomber then I donot think its difficult to motivate the individual as a sports person ( irrespective of any sports). Here the only difference unlike a sucide bomber is that you should respect your opponent,
Naren,
Mumbai
Very nice blog I really appreciate authors efforts
I strongly agree with the author to popularize football in Pakistan.
I have an idea. Why don’t they promote baseball in Pakistan. It is the sport which is most closely related to cricket. In Pakistan they have gulli danda anyway which is similar to baseball or ‘pee wee’ in America. The Pakistan National Baseball team won the Asia Baseball Cup 2010 and they are ranked 8th in the Baseball Federation of Asia and a respectable ranking of 31 with the International Baseball Federation. Furthermore if any of our players make it to the Major leagues in the US or even Japan…they can make way more money than the IPL or county cricket. In conclusion it is a sport in which we can easily transfer our cricketing skills to become great baseball players.
I have an uncle who lived in Japan for almost 10 years and he said that when the Japanese saw him ‘pitching’ (ie same as bowling in cricket) they were surprised that he was so fast. He told them that in Pakistan we play a game of cricket which is strongly related to baseball and requires you to throw the ball with great speed as well. This shows that baseball would be a great sport to develop and we could potentially be great at.
We should go for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Boxing.. in boxing we already have Amir khan but he dont represents us, but thanks to him we have realized that we can play this sport toooo… MMA involves big money and becoming pet sport in america and europe, UFC and StrikeForce are main promotion for MMA and we should motivate our pashtoons and baloch people, who are born brawlers, to compete in MMA and boxing!! they can easily KO anyone…. We just lack in height and let me tell you, HIGHT DOSENT EVEN MATTER in these two sports…. Manzar!!!
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Hahahahah … Good one. And thankfully not an “inspired” by NF Paracha satire. I like your interesting observation and take.
Yeah her name was Rubab Raza…
Hey I remember that a few years back at the Olympics there was a female swimmer she didn’t win but it was great to see her doing her thing…
Perhaps Pakistani’s will be able to pick up on something that shoort them into the Olympics it will be surprising to see Pakistani’s compete…
Whoa Pakistan!!!
Claudia
This is what I thought too lol.
this guy just another blogger trying to write something witty. he forgot athletics rather conveniently, considering we had a star in 100 m there as well. If we are looking for one hit wonders and unusual upsets as substitutes then this article is rather a sorry attempt and lacks insight
its not about the winners cause Aisam didn’t win, its about someone we can be proud of. The 100m star was a winner but would she have been able to give an interview which would have made us proud as a nation? I think not. On the other hand Aisam sure did at his post match interview at the US Open.
Polo wouldnt be too bad you know… We can improve in it
hell yeah to football.
Maybe we can modify Kabbadi a little bit and call it Pakistani Football. American and canadian football is kind of same. Men running after a ball and touching each other. There is also a sad fact that Canadian Kabbadi clubs (mostly made up of Punjabi Indian expats, except for once it had Nigerian born olympic gold medalist whrestler from Canada in one of the teams) beat Pakistan team a few times.
Mass in these days prefer Sport involving much exercise and pleasure is….
Trouble is that there is a risk of increasing population. A Satire.!!!
When a sport become a matter of Prestige and False arrogance,then u have to Win all the time and others must loose.?
Revive games with spirit and any sport will become a pleasure. Persuation and persistence is a must.
If one wants everything instant drink coffee!!!….In sports Work hard and beware you need a good opponent to display your worth… Otherwise better play Fantasy
It’s all about Rugby!!! It’s growing here in Pakistan too. A sport that involves high physicality and speed- makes you proud to be pakistani; you won’t have to settle for lame cricket and hockey
hahahaha…loved it! Thanks for a good laugh, Murtaza! Although agree completely with the conclusion..tennis it will be …for now at least!
Bang on Target…nothing more to say
LOL! ahah! Totally enjoyed it. Now, obviously this mind works in ‘pretty amazing’ ways.
The Dance dance revolution works for me!
well tennis is not really a ‘sport’ is it? its a ‘game’ as i understand it correct me if i’m wrong…and what do you mean Punjabi dominated thats just rubbish.
where do u people come from? game? sport? :p
No really, what does he means by Punjabi dominated sport? Huh? Are you prejudiced?
Finally an excellent article about the topic, continue the great work and also I wish to read far more from you in the longer term.
After all the honor given to the Pakistanis by the trio(asif,amir,and butt), i have promised myself not to see the game again. I have switched my interests to Tennis and what a great sight that was when Aisam was playing in the finals and the way he spoke in the after match presentation.
Good one! Liked a lot, keep writing Murtaza Ali.
Lolz!….good stuffs!….loved the kabaddi part
…and completely agree with your final verdict!…go Aisam!!