As could only have been expected, Islamabad had much more firepower than anything that Quetta had when it came to the crunch at the Pakistan Super League. Maybe not in pure cricketing terms, but, metaphorically speaking, the PSL franchises quite appropriately reflected the national ground reality in some other — more critical — areas.
Lahore, for instance, promised much through well-generated hype and hoopla, but failed to deliver on the promise and crashed out. Karachi huffed and puffed its way forward but then ran into leadership crisis — the only of the five to have a team controversy — and went out with a whimper. Peshawar threatened to run away with the trophy at the halfway mark, but when it was time to separate the men from the boys, it was more a boy than the man many thought it was. The tussle remaining indecisive till the end was between Islamabad and Quetta, And, in the end, the federal capital, just steamrolled the Balochistan capital.
It was not quite what Quetta deserved for it had won seven of its nine matches till the final, but when it came to facing Islamabad, the psyche in the Quetta camp showed some jitters, some additional butterflies in the tummy. It was perhaps reflective of the nomenclature more than cricketing skills. Had the Islamabad side been called, Rawalpindi-Islamabad, maybe the resistance from Quetta would have been a bit tougher. Who knows?
Pakistani cricketers made PSL headlines more often than the foreigners and that was a big success factor in the League story
Even the PSL organisers seemed to have some sense of occasion — and some sense of national issues — for the League had started with the two fighting it out between them. They battled it out again halfway through. And they were still at each other’s throats in the final. How appropriate!
Away from the Islamabad-Quetta rivalry of sorts, the PSL did make an impact. There can be no debate or controversy about it. The hopes that it will help international cricket back to Pakistan might be a little misplaced, but that can be attributed to some understandable and even justified chest-thumping on the part of those behind the whole act.
That as many as three changes to the national squad were made before the Twenty20 PSL could come to an end is a reasonable testimony to its success, and, interestingly, to the simple fact that for once the national selectors were keeping their eyes open. That the Pakistan Cricket Board was willing to react positively to performances delivered on the field of play and picked up by the selectors should be taken as the clichéd icing on the cake.
Even otherwise, the PSL did capture the fancy of the nation despite the somewhat low-key start to the proceedings. Once the League moved to Sharjah, the matches had a lot more life to them owing to a better surface that suited the format. And when the boundary ropes were moved inwards, there were a few more balls flying off the blades and landing beyond them rather than in the hands of outfielders.
It was only in the final that three foreigners — Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka, Devon Smith of West Indies and Brad Haddin of Australia — hogged the limelight so completely. More often than not till then, the success story was about some Pakistani lad, like Muhammad Nawaz, Sharjeel Khan, Aizaz Cheema and such others. The PSL headlines were not about the heroics of, say, Chris Gayle or Kevin Pietersen, and that says something about the way the local performers rose to the occasion when it came their way. That was another feather in the PSL cap.
The match of the League — in terms of both contest and context — was surely the first qualifying final between Quetta and Peshawar. The teams had met earlier as well and the result was settled on the penultimate ball of the match in favour of Quetta. When they met again, Peshawar had an easy run, taking the match with eight wickets with eight balls to go. The two ended at the top of the table with 12 points in the allotted eight games, with Peshawar having an edge in terms of overall net run rate.
When a new — technically debatable though interesting — format put the two to fight for a direct entry into the final, Quetta tipped the scale by the narrowest possible margin: one run with all balls bowled and one wicket standing. Hero? Cheema who held his nerve when Peshawar needed eight runs off six balls, and even more when three runs were needed off as many balls with as many wickets still left.
But there was more to it for anyone interested in having a view of the larger picture. Who didn’t watch a seriously tense Vivian Richards in the Quetta dugout, then a jumping, thumping Richards as the last over rolled out, and then a wildly rushing-on-to-the-field Richards after victory was secured on the last ball? In many ways, it was the defining image of the PSL Edition One. Any contest that could get Sir Vivian Alexander Richards so engrossed and immersed has to be a winner, and so was the PSL. There can be no argument beyond that.
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 28th, 2016
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