Pakistani men are good together. Hell, they’re great together. Watch them in the dhaba, at the office, on the cricket pitch: in their interactions there’s an ease and familiarity.

These thoughts occurred to me last month while I watched a concert in Karachi. This ‘Summer Jam’ featured some of Pakistan’s best young rock musicians. Musically they hit all the right notes, but I particularly enjoyed their banter and camaraderie on stage. They were playing to over a hundred people, but this didn’t stop them having their own fun with each other, grinning and pranking their way through a great set. Being unhealthily obsessed with cricket as I am, I couldn’t help but compare this to our national team.

Watch English or Australian cricketers. Even if their team spirit is high, they are much more formal in their physical approach to each other. There are handshakes and celebratory pats on the shoulder. Sure, there are sometimes hugs, but every team gets a little boisterous after a big wicket. With the Pakistan team things are different. Watch our players in practice, or between balls, when nothing much is going on, even when the chips are down. There are embraces, arms over shoulders, tapping of bums.

Over recent years, the ‘team bonding trip’ has become popular with international sides. The idea is to send players to somewhere remote like a mountain village (not for the preponderance of physical beauty but for the lack of bars) and have them do group excercises to improve fitness and also to gel the players closer together. With the Pakistan team, there’s no need for the latter reason. From an early age, men learn to bond quickly with other men. In Pakistan, it is not unusual to greet another man for the first time with a hug; having lived in England, I know that men there who have known each other since primary school will often be awkwardly reluctant to even shake the other’s hand.

Camaraderie, however, is not the only strong parallel between music and cricket in Pakistan. Currently, the only real ‘stars’ this nation is producing on an internationl scale are those with a bat and ball, or mic and guitar, in hand. Perhaps this explains why bright-eyed Pakistani girls, often conservative in their interactions with the opposite sex, will loosen the shackles a touch and make an exception for the charismatic cricketer or the magnetic rocker.

But these male-dominated worlds need not stay stuck in their ways. At the concert, the song which blew me away and almost took the roof off the auditorium was the band's rendition of 'Hit the Road Jack.' This featured a female singer, Sarah Memon, in tandem with Sheldon on vocals and the rest of the all-male band. The lively duet was musical dynamite: a truly explosive performance. So for all my talk of man-to-man easiness, it goes to show that, with a little push, men can handle a female in the mix - and everyone can reap the rewards. (Perhaps a lesson for other areas in our society.)

Yet a quick scan of our cricket team and our rock bands shows that music has some catching up to do. Our cricket system is far from perfect, but it's highly unlikely that a super-talented young player from a poor family would not make it through to the very top level. Think of Mohammad Yousuf: if it wasn't for his batting genius, he'd still be working in a tailor's shop in the slums of Lahore. However, the same guarantees can't be made of a lower-class rock band. They'd need contacts and support to get noticed and then establish themselves, which is why bands who make an initial impact are not able to develop. Additionally, it takes money in the first place to buy musical equipment. This explains why most bands hail from the upper-middle classes. Cricket has survived and flourished in this country because, somehow, it has managed to pay for itself and support its cricketers. Cricket used to be the preserve of the elites, with Oxbridge captains and an Angliscised style of play. In the 1960s, 70s and especially in the 80s, with the help of television, it became a mass sport - and we became one of the best teams in the world. If music is opened up in the same way as cricket, if a young rocker from a Lahore slum is able to concentrate on his music because he knows he can support himself with his talent, who knows how melodious our musical future might be.

Our eternal preoccupation in cricket, as well all know, is to be better than the Indians. Music is different to cricket, of course, for it's not a contest (ignoring American Idol for a moment). However, it is worth noting that our rock and pop music seems to reach levels of soulfulness, anger and accomplishment which the Indians can only envy.  Although the music industry has some work to do, there is one consolation for Pakistanis: in terms of cool, hip, meaningful music, we've got the beating of our friends across the border. With Bollywood's omnipotence dominating the Indian record industry, Indian rock bands don't stand a chance. Which leaves me with just one thing to say as we look forward to Independence Day tomorrow: Pakistan Zindabad.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.