Last week, Lahore remained in international news due to the high-profile and history-making Independence Cup cricket series between Pakistan and the World XI. Pakistan won the three T20 matches series 2-1; the bigger story, however, is the peaceful conduct of the matches, which was the main target of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to resume the international cricket in Pakistan. The International Cricket Council (ICC), the game’s governing body, took such a bold decision to plan the tour to resume international cricket in Pakistan after the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009.

The body monitored the security abilities of the country throughout the series. ICC’s two key officials, chief executive Dave Richardson, also a former Test cricketer of South Africa, and ICC Director Giles Clarke, visited Lahore to see some of the matches. Clarke accompanied the touring squad and remained in Lahore till Thursday.

Many top class world players, such as Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla and Imran Tahir from South Africa, Darren Samee and Samuel Badree from the West Indies, Thisara Perera from Sri Lanka, Paul Collingwood from England, Tamim Iqbal from Bangladesh, David Miller and Tim Paine from Australia and Grant Elliot from New Zealand, along with some other players of seven countries were part of the World XI. Andy Flower, former captain of Zimbabwe, was the coach of the visitors. Flower extended his stay in Lahore for one day on the invitation of his brother, Grant Flower, who has been working with the Pakistan cricket team as batting consultant for the last four years.

At the end of the series, ICC officials also sent messages to the world of cricket showing full satisfaction over Pakistan’s ability to host and take care of foreign cricketers. Hopefully, foreign teams will start touring Pakistan in the near future.

Before hosting the foreign teams, the PCB should hold Pakistan Super League matches in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad to get security clearance of these cities from foreign experts. At least, three cities should be available to host a full tour of any foreign country.The response of the cricket fans who thronged the Gaddafi Stadium on all three matches was overwhelming. One remembers that when India visited Pakistan for a full series in 2004, Lahore hosted back-to-back One-day International matches at the Gaddafi Stadium. Though Lahorities packed the stadium to see the first ODI. In the second match, the Gaddafi Stadium was almost half-packed at the start of the second innings of the match. In dying overs, however, the stadium was packed to its capacity. But this time, Lahorities showed more passion for the series as the Gaddafi Stadium remained packed to its capacity during the three matches, despite the facts the tickets were 200 per cent costlier than the Indo-Pak matches and that the three matches were held on working days.

Though there is no information on the free passes issued by the PCB to its guests, sponsors, journalists and relatives and friends of the board’s employees, cricket crazy fans arrived at the stadium in maximum number to watch the world class players. Hopefully, Sri Lanka will also send its team to play one-off T20 match in Lahore in October. In November, the West Indies is to play three T20 matches. The two tours will increase prospects for the resumption of international series in Pakistan. Head of the West Indies cricket board Dav Cameron also watched the last match of the series and appreciated the arrangements.

Though the game of football has no strong footing in Pakistan, some die-hard fans of the game are doing good efforts to help the players to play the world biggest sport, which is being played by almost all 205 countries. Last week, the Gujranwala Football Academy, being run by Malik Abdul Hafeez, arranged a tour of the academy team to Malaysia to participate in the club-level tournament. They came back with a bronze medal. Clubs from four countries - Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and the host country Malaysia - took part in the event.

Football is often in local news due to legal cases. The Lahore High Court’s decision will put the game of football on right track. If quarters concerned do not show seriousness in the game, FIFA may impose a ban on Pakistan from playing international football at any stage.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2017