It was not the victory that surprised me, but the professional manner in which it was achieved: Irfan Husain.

As all Pakistanis know, supporting our cricket team is a major exercise in masochism, with exquisite pleasure following long periods of pain. All of this is entirely self-inflicted, of course: all we have to do is to flip the remote and the nightmare will disappear. But we hang on to the last ball, hoping against hope that a miracle will rescue us. Our prayers are not usually answered, but once in a while, the Great Umpire in the Sky throws down a lifeline to the floundering ‘bayyz’ (as my friend Agha Imran Hamid refers to them), and for a change, we actually pull a victory from the jaws of defeat instead of doing it the other way around.

My friends (and readers, I hope) know that I am no flag-waving patriot. But when it comes to cricket, I am as rabid as any Pakistani fan with the green and white colours daubed on his face. This condition is more acute when I am watching the erratic progress of the team abroad. In Pakistan, one can curse the fumbling efforts of the guys in green to one’s friends. But when sitting in a room full of sympathetic goras, it is hard not to throw something at the TV screen when a Pakistani player drops yet another catch. In this situation, one has to put up with the commiseration of foreigners who keep wondering why our players have let a boundary go through their feet yet again. Inwards, of course, you would like to personally flog the offending fielder. But to the goras watching with you, you have to murmur some inanity about the hard grounds in Pakistan that making diving for the ball such a painful exercise.

Like all supporters, I was prepared for the worst when the T20 competition began in England recently. Many of my English friends asked me what our chances were, and I replied that I had very low expectations. And in fairness, the ‘bayyz’ did nothing to upset forecasts by losing their warm-up games. So far, so predictable. But cometh the day, cometh Abdul Razzaq: his return to the squad seemed to transform it into a professional outfit, and they never looked back.

Normally, I insulate myself from disappointment and despondency by betting against our team, so when we lose, I have the small consolation of having won my bet. In the recent T20 tournament, I had predicted a Sri Lanka- South Africa final, with the former having the edge. So when we faced the unbeaten South African team in the semi-finals, I didn’t give our guys much of a chance. For the last couple of years, the Proteas have been on a roll, and their fielding has been electrifying. Not giving our team much of a chance against Smith’s redoubtable bunch, I sent a text message off to my old friend Javed Ali Khan in Karachi, offering 2-1 odds on Pakistan, just to keep my interest in the game alive. Having predicted a cup victory for the South Africans, he took me on immediately.

As the match progressed, and Afridi unleashed his newly resurrected batting prowess, we began to see a glimmer of hope. Javed’s string of text messages from Karachi reflected his growing dismay at having his carefully scripted South African passage into the final being torn up. Umar Gul’s amazingly accurate Yorkers drove the final nails into the South African coffin. Javed’s last text message read: ‘Illiterate Pakis couldn’t follow a simple script.’ Of course he was as delighted as I was with the result.

We had guests staying with us over the weekend, and I was slightly concerned at having the suspense of the final being shattered by clueless goras asking silly questions. The match was due to start at three, and I was barbecuing for lunch. At breakfast, I announced that from three onwards, I would be lost to the world. I also hinted that an early departure for London after lunch would allow our guests to beat the weekend traffic. In my attempt to cook quickly, I did not give the charcoal enough time to settle into a hot, steady fire, and seared the meat on the outside without cooking it properly inside. This was rectified by chucking it into an oven for ten minutes.

Lunch over, I settled into my armchair in front of the TV, advising the guests to explore the town for its historical gems before they left. But one of the younger members of the family wanted to watch, so they clustered around, much to my (well-concealed) annoyance. The game progressed, and the amazing early Sri Lankan collapse gave long-suffering Pakistani supporters a glimmer of hope. But just when it seemed the Sri Lankans would be all out before reaching three figures, Sangakara, and later Arnold Mathews lifted the total into the respectability zone. Each time one of them hit a boundary – something they did with depressing regularity – one of our guests would say something like: ‘I say, he whacked that one pretty hard.’

Once again, Pakistan was given a chance to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As usual, I had placed a bet on Sri Lanka to win with Javed via text message, and with Pakistan facing 139 to win, my 200 rupees was looking pretty safe. Kamran Akmal had been fairly erratic in the tournament, and young Shahzaib had not done much to impress thus far. I feared that the vaunted Sri Lankan attack would make rapid inroads into the Pakistani batting line-up, but much to my surprise, there was no panic in our run-chase. Even when Afridi arrived on the scene after Kamran Akmal’s departure, he did not immediately start throwing his bat at everything. Shoaib Malik kept giving the strike to Afridi who stuck to the required run-rate without going berserk.

In the end, it was not the victory that surprised me, but the professional manner in which it was achieved. Having practically lost my bet on Sri Lanka with a couple of overs left, I was surprised to receive a text from Javed offering me odds of 100-1 against Pakistan. I immediately accepted and placed a hundred against his one rupee. And that’s what I won after two matches of hectic texting and betting. It might not allow me to retire, but it’s a moral victory nonetheless, as I reminded Javed.

And while I wallow in the glow of victory, may I ask somebody with clout in cricketing circles back home to please get Kamran Akmal to shut up behind the stumps? His shrill exhortations to the ‘bayyz’ set my teeth on edge, so before I personally strangle him, would somebody please gag the little wicket-keeper?