Last week, the Pakistan cricket team left Lahore for Christchurch, New Zealand, in a low-key affair to participate in the first leg of World Cup-2015, which is being organised by Australia and New Zealand from February 14 to March 29. The departure did not mark any high-profile send-off by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). A brief media chat was arranged at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) where the team and PCB officials seemed under stress because of heavy security. A heavy contingent of law-enforcing agencies guarded the team’s bus from the NCA to the Allama Iqbal Airport. The traffic also remained closed on the route. PCB Chairman Shaharyar M Khan met the team at the airport.

The PCB says it had invited cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who led Pakistan to win their lone One-day World Cup way back in 1992, to Lahore to meet the members of the Pakistan team before their departure. Mr Khan asked the team to come to Islamabad as he was unable to come to Lahore because of his tight engagement. The team was to visit Islamabad to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but his sudden departure to Saudi Arabia changed the plan. The PCB did not go ahead with the Islamabad visit only to meet Mr Kan.

However, before the team’s departure an event created stir in the media and among the public when the last day the PCB dropped injury-prone Junaid Khan and replaced him with Bilawal Bhatti. Junaid had pulled his hamstring during the short training camp and failed to recover.

Lahore Lions cricket team is currently participating in the National One-day tournament in Karachi and after the end of the second round, it is at the 4th position in the six-team Pool-B. The performance of Lions is better than its two other regional counterparts -- Karachi Zebras (5th) and Islamabad Region (6th). The top three positions are with department teams, who have always enjoyed sway over the regions because of having more professional players.

So far, Umar Siddiq and Saud Shakeel are the batsmen of Lions, who could cross the total of 100 in two matches. Umar has aggregated 118, much behind to Mukhtar Ahmad of State Bank of Pakistan, who scored 188 and Saud, who has 116 runs in two matches. In bowling, all-rounder Saad Nasim (3-96) and Ali Tipu (3-97) are the prominent ones. So, there is no long queue of individual performers. It should be a matter of concern for the Lahore City Cricket Association.

Lahore hosted the first National Women Modern Pentathlon Champions last week. It is a newly-introduced game in Pakistan.

Punjab’s Farhat Batool, who was declared the best player of the event, said the country has the potential in this game and soon Pakistan will emerge among some top countries of the game, provided the government support the game.

This past week, former Pakistan captain Inzamamul Haq held a function here to inaugurate Inzamamul Haq Cricket Academy in Multan.

Inzamam selected Lahore for the inauguration because a good number of cricketers, attending short national training camp for the World Cup, were available to him in the city. In the first phase, the academy will work in Multan. It will be expanded to other major cities of the Multan division.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2015

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