Winter nostalgia and the 22-yard pitch

AS winter begins to make its presence felt in Islamabad, it is only natural to feel nostalgic about a season that makes the federal capital special for so many reasons. To begin, with its picturesque setting and relatively fresh air compared to any other metro. And if the sun smiles, too, a winter morning and afternoon here make your day like few things in life can.

The nostalgic mood — the sheer romance of it — was immortalised by Gulzar in the film Mausam:

Dil dhoondta hai phir wohi fursat ke raat din…

(The heart yearns for those leisurely days and nights…)

For my generation, cricket was that romance — an ardour partaken on the various playgrounds and parks in Islamabad. As schoolboys, for us the weekends were the great retreat from dull and dreary days during the time of General Ziaul Haq.

Those were also the days of Field Marshal Imran Khan, his shrewd lieutenant Javed Miandad and a bunch of diehard young guns, who under their tutelage lived like James Bond multiplied, given their style of snatching victory from the jaws of an approaching defeat.

Meanwhile, schoolboys like us in their orange uniforms (nothing Ukrainian about those, just more like the colour of prisoner wear on Guantanamo Bay) were scripting their own quantum(s) of solace — any resemblance to the title of the latest James Bond flick is deliberate!

This, we achieved by imitating our cricket heroes — first, by verbal volleys dissecting who played how in our classrooms and then, replaying them on the cricket ground outside the Embassy Road in Sector G-6/4.

While Zia played his own games away from the 22-yard pitch, we couldn’t be more lost — in the game, that is. This view could be taken to mean literally, since the dictator kept any democratic aspirants wishing to march on Islamabad busy with long-winded rubbers of their favourite sport.

To think that an Imran-led Pakistan played six Tests one winter at home against arch-rivals India (in 1982) is to feel like an ancient man in the age of Twenty20, but there it was.

The general had us hooked to the game almost as if it provided legitimacy to his rule. The clever diversion was made possible thanks to Pakistan’s winning ways, which until a few years ago was the only glue that apparently, united Pakistanis of all hues.

It still would, if we didn’t lose matches like our forex reserves!

No wonder when the great Khan first retired — as the country wallowed in the pain of losing the semi-final of the 1987 World Cup — Zia lured him back. The step was purportedly, taken in the national interest, of course — as all decisions emanating from GHQ and/or Islamabad are supposed to be.

In hindsight, it was probably, the only redeeming feature of the Zia years as Imran’s return half-a-decade later led Pakistan to a fairytale World Cup triumph, but which the military strongman did not live long enough to see.

And when that fairytale was unfolding in 1992, obsessed fans like us in Islamabad were stroking long and hard into the night (under floodlights) with our bats before scampering for a sehri bite and sitting up in our beds to feast on the real thing in Australia.

Karachi and Lahore can lay all claims they like — since they rule the roost — but even floodlight cricket with taped tennis ball only began on the streets of Islamabad.

It became a fad in an already cricket-mad capital where belting monstrous sixes and rattling the timber held the wide awake spectators, especially on Ramadan nights, spellbound. All this happened years before the likes of Shahid Khan Afridi resorted to his inimitable agricultural strikes and Twenty20 was no longer confused with perfect vision!

But those were the days. You still see young pretenders going through the motions on the playing fields around the capital. Certainly, the facilities have improved a great deal.

In fact, private MNC sponsorships are available to properly maintained cricket grounds in many sectors. Even the once-sedate looking Diamond Cricket Club, home to budding talent from the capital, was moved from Sector G-9 to G-8/2, a year-and-a-half ago. The lush and plush new ground is a sight for sore eyes.

However, a better deal hasn’t quite translated into a launching pad for greater glory. In fact, one no longer finds the same maverick zest seen, say a decade ago. May be, the youth today have no role models, with a ragtag national team incapable of firing their imagination and the world having turned its back on sporting contact in Pakistan.

It would seem behind every isolated cricketer in Islamabad is a present and clear danger: insecurity of life. Terrorism, of which the federal capital has been the biggest victim of all urban centres in the last couple of years, appears to have affected the way they would perhaps, have enacted the drama of bat and ball.

Deprived of inspiration and denied the chance to be free spirited, the boys in Islamabad no longer appear to have the verve to belt sixes and rattle the timber like there was no tomorrow.

Any wonder dil dhoondta hai phir wohi fursat ke raat din?

The writer is News Editor at Dawn News. He may be contacted at kaamyabi@gmail.com