In case you haven’t been able to keep up, here’s a short recap of the last five months in Pakistan cricket. We became World Champions, but were branded as match-fixers by a very bored politician. We beat our arch-rivals in a major ICC tournament, but developed a habit of losing ODI games to our perpetual...

In the age of stump microphones, slow-motion lip reading, and ICC penal codes for racist slurs on the field, Pakistan’s pioneer sports channel has come up with an unbelievable series promo. The private sports channel’s teaser for the upcoming India-Sri Lanka cricket series defies belief. As video...

What could possibly make a Pakistani fan turn away from a clinical performance by their cricket team, while it’s in progress? The score line of a James Cerritani and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi vs. Marco Chiudinelli and Roger Federer doubles game! For a moment it almost seemed surreal: Federer in his ‘formal...

Dear Imran Farhat, So, you’re back. I’d tell you it’s good to see you again, but it’s not. You must be over the moon, what with being picked for all three formats. Why, you must think you’re a regular Kevin Pietersen, eh? Unfortunately, Imran, you’re not. You may be a year or so older. You...

‘Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you, it’s much more important than that.’ Bill Shankly said these words. He was a charismatic man and Liverpool Football Club’s most successful manager. The quote was classic Shankly: witty, passionate, and showing his...

The umpiring in the New Zealand semi-final was poor, but things are much better than they used to be. The umpire today is less policeman or headmaster, more executioner. The ball stuns the guilty pad or whizzes past the hanging bat, and then the bowler and fielders roar in unison, a mad mob, without...

*With latest updates Here we go again. It has barely been 24 hours since Younis Khan and some other members of the Pakistan cricket team landed back home, and the barbs are flying already. The Pakistan team is known to provide action even in inaction, and sometimes it’s actually entertaining. But there...

As the world’s top-ranked ODI team helplessly crashed out of the Champions Trophy, their media had a field day blaming archrivals Pakistan for their team’s ouster. It didn’t matter that Australia’s win against Pakistan came off the last ball despite having to chase a meager total, or that Misbah-ul-Haq...

It’s hard to recall an instance in world cricket when the fate of one match had so much riding on it. That the Champions Trophy Pakistan-Australia match yesterday was a reminder of how relevant the topsy-turvy nature of 50-over format is to cricket was only an afterthought. The game was largely...

If you were to flip through local television channels moments after Pakistan’s Champions Trophy win over India on Saturday, you would have thought we had won the not-so-fan-friendly tournament itself. And well, that is what everyone on streets was saying. ‘Winning against India is like winning the...