“THE wait is almost over, beta. The trophy will be ours very soon now,” said Abrar Ahmed, Pakistan cricket captain Sarfraz Ahmed’s paternal uncle as he stood ready with a big box of sweetmeats by the gate of their home in Karachi’s Buffer Zone on Sunday evening. When he saw me, he asked me to come inside as it was getting rather chaotic on the streets outside, with an ecstatic crowd going mad with joy after India lost their eighth wicket.

And then the fall of the ninth wicket meant that victory can come at any minute. Fans started bracing themselves for the big moment. Sarfraz’s friends, among them those who played street cricket with him when he was a child, were there, too, with two or three sticks wrapped in foil. “Are those wickets?” a newspaper reporter asked one of them. “They are firecrackers, sister!” he said.

And then as the 10th wicket also fell with Sarfraz himself taking Hassan Ali’s catch just like he had done for the ninth wicket to wind up the match and the championship to take the trophy away from traditional rivals India, the already charged crowd went absolutely wild. Not only were there fire crackers and fireworks going off along with aerial firing there were hugs and tears, too.

Amid the frenzy, a stray bullet grazed a crazy fan’s head, but he kept on dancing until his friend pulled him out of the crowd and dragged him to the nearest hospital. Meanwhile, the endless supplies of sweetmeat boxes were losing their contents one after the other.

“We ordered plenty of mithai right after Pakistan’s batting because giving India a 340-run target in a final itself said a lot. We just knew victory was going to be ours today,” said Sarfraz’s eldest aunt, Shakira Rafique, unable to stop the tears.

Asked why she was crying, she quickly started wiping her eyes with her dupatta. “They are tears of joy, beta. I am reminded of all our dear ones who are no longer with us today. There is Sarfraz’s father, my own husband and his father’s older brother and, of course, the parents — Sarfraz and my children’s grandparents. They would be so happy to see their progeny bringing such joy to Pakistan,” she said.

Then looking around their TV lounge where everyone had their eyes glued to the television screen as they waited for Sarfraz to lift the trophy, she remembered something and smiled through her tears. “You know, Sarfraz used to play cricket right here as a little boy? He broke several lights and windows this way. Often his mother would snatch the bat from his little hands to give him a good thrashing with it. And I would come running from my room there,” she pointed in the direction of her bedroom, “to rescue him,” she laughed at the memory.

Sarfraz’s mother and an older sister had flown to Saudi Arabia only that morning for Umrah and his wife Khushbakht and little son Abdullah were with him in England. Only his brothers and a younger sister, Amna, were in Karachi along with their cousins praying for Pakistan’s victory.

“Sarfraz is deeply religious. He was already a Hafiz-ul-Quran at age nine. Before leaving for England, he told us to pray for Pakistan,” recalled his 16-year-old younger sister.

Maria Nadeen, a cousin, had penned a poem for Sarfraz from which she read a few lines. The gist of the selection was that the prayers of his sisters would accompany him wherever he goes and he, too, should be confident and not take the good tidings for granted as he works hard to win laurels for Pakistan.

As they watched the victory ceremony on television, the elders would turn around every now and then to hush everyone animatedly chatting away in the room. Suddenly there were boos from all as the elders smiled, knowing only too well the expected reaction from the children as Indian captain Virat Kohli came up to speak. “Oh go away, you loser! Clear the way for Sarfraz Bhai. Who wants to hear you?” screamed one little girl in a green kit with the Pakistan flag painted on both her cheeks.

Then one by one the triumphant green shirts came up to be adorned in white jackets by the ICC officials. “They really look like the Pakistan flag with those jackets over their green kits now,” one of the children pointed out. “No, no, they are lab coats. Someone call Amir Sohail. Tell him how we doctored our win,” laughed another.

“Shhhh …” an elder tried to bring some order back to the room by putting a finger to his lips. But when Sarfraz was finally called up to speak and lift the Champions Trophy, even he couldn’t stay silent and screamed “Pakistan Zindabad!”.

The women and children applauded. Then everyone was all ears as the new young Pakistan captain had everyone in his family under his spell — just like he had turned his disjointed bunch of players into a fighting unit that beat its opponents fair and square.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2017