Thank you, Afridi!

Seventeen years ago, on this very day, Shahid Afridi scored the fastest ever ODI century, in just 37 balls, against Sri Lanka. It is a record that is still intact. Afridi, who was batting for the first time in his one day international career, gave a performance that proved to be a nightmare for the Sri Lankans.

When Shahid Afridi, aged 16 years and 217 days at that time, walked onto the field, little did the Sri Lankans know that they were in for a thrashing at the hands of a young teenager. Afridi mauled them in such a brutal way that they were sent crashing out of the tournament. Although he missed the chance of equaling the fastest ever ODI half century, by just one ball, he still went on to bludgeon his way to the fastest century in ODI cricket. Afridi sending the ball into the tiers became a common sight for the spectators watching the match. Every bowler seemed helpless. Afridi walloped his way through the bowling line-up, leaving them high and dry.


When Shahid Afridi was on 97 from 36 balls, millions of hearts started to beat faster; millions of lips moved in recitation of prayers. And the prayers were heard. They were answered. As soon as the commentator uttered: “This could be the world record.. SHAHID AFRIDI HAS GOT THE FASTEST HUNDRED IN ONE DAY INTERNATIONALS”, jubilation filled the air. It was Pakistan’s moment. It was Pakistan’s celebration. For a man playing his first knock in one day international cricket, this was an astounding achievement. He hit eleven sixes in that game, equaling Sanath Jayasuriya’s record in ODIs. The scoring sequence of his final tally of 102 runs came as: 0,6,1,0,4,0,0,6,0,0,6,6,1,1,6,6,2,6,4,4,0,0,6,6,1,4,1,1,0,4,1,6,0,6,0,2,4,1,0,0.

It was a game that will forever be remembered for Afridi’s heroics.


That was seventeen years ago. Fast forward to the present and you see a Shahid Afridi who still is the heart and soul of Pakistan cricket team. He might fail to perform sometimes, but you cannot write him off. Afridi, being the charmer that he is, is known as the ‘darling of the crowd’. You might dislike him at times. You might get angry when he fails to perform at the most crucial of times. But you can never ‘hate’ him. It is said that there is an Afridi-fan inside each one of us. Over all these years, he has paved his way into the heart of each and every supporter of Pakistan cricket. He is the man whom we all love to see in the green shirt.


From playing a vital role in Pakistan’s 2009 T20 Worldcup triumph, to making Pakistan reach the semi final of 2011 Worldcup, Shahid Afridi has always gone out to bring laurels for this nation. He is a superstar, a legend, who will always be cherished.

Thank you for all the glorious moments and bundles of joy, Lala. You are our pride and we are blessed to have you!

Main hoon Shahid Afridi- Zamana bolay Boom Boom!

Pakistani cinema has struck, and it has struck hard. With the release of ‘Main hoon Shahid Afridi’ and the overpowering response that it has received, it wouldn’t be any embellishment to say that Pakistani cinema is FINALLY back on track. We had been hearing about efforts being made for the revival of cinema in Pakistan, for quite some time now, but barely had we witnessed anything  happening (except for Shoaib Mansoor’s work), but now it seems that people in the film industry are in fact talking business.

I am neither a film critic nor a movie buff. I know nothing about IMDb ratings. I am just an ordinary person who went to cinema to see what sort of movies were being made in her country, and came out of the movie house, bursting with pride. The first thing that came to mind after watching ‘Main hoon Shahid Afridi’ was, does Chak de India even come close to what we have produced? When it comes to Shahrukh Khan vs the REAL Khan (Shahid Khan Afridi), we all know who emerges victorious. Anything that had Shahid Afridi’s name associated with it, was bound to attract audience. But it was Humayun Saeed’s high quality cinematic production that led to the movie being a blockbuster.

‘Main hoon Shahid Afridi’ plays with your emotions till the very end, when the credits start to roll in. Resentment, tension, frustration, thrill, ecstasy- Main hoon Shahid Afridi is a package of all. From broken hearts to last ball sixer (oh how I wanted to hoot when he hit that!), Main hoon Shahid Afridi has it all. It makes you shed tears when hell breaks loose on Humayun Saeed, and it makes you want to swing your hands up in the air when his team wins.

Be it Humayun Saeed’s thunder-striking punch lines or Ismail Tara’s self-deprecating comedy, MHSA has been brilliantly scripted. All kudos to Vasay Chaudhry. The movie also has some pithy one liners, like ‘cricket khelni hai, milaad nahi manani’ and ‘udher deewar-e-Cheen mashhoor hai, idher deewar-e-teen’.

MHSA lacks entrancing music though. None of the songs are captivating. Of all the songs, one only remembers ‘jera vi ae aande’ when coming out of the cinema. The rest are simply forgettable. Shani and Kami could have done a better job.

In MHSA, Humayun Saeed proves why he is still one of the best actors in the industry. To be honest, he is even better than Moammar Rana or Shaan! Maybe it’s time to reconsider who the real hero of Lollywood is. And it’s definitely time to rename our industry! Not Lollywood, please. The big guns of the industry should come up with an enhanced and widely acceptable name.

If you are a cricket fan, MHSA is highly recommended for you. If you think Lagaan and Chak de India were the best sports-oriented movies ever produced in India-Pakistan, I suggest it’s time you think again. Believe me when I say, it beats Bollywood flicks any day. MHSA is all set to give Chennai Express a run for its money. It gets full five stars from me.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pakistani film industry is here to stay!

Also published here: http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/2013/09/main-hoon-shahid-afridi-zamana-bolay-boom-boom/

Pakistan deserves MORE.

As 14th August approaches today, most of the country is already dancing green and tall buildings are bedazzling people with decked lights wrapped beautifully around them. It is fortunately this time of the year again when green flags grace rooftops and cars, and stereo systems explode with national songs in fervent exuberance. Patriotism gushes thick like blood through our vessels and burns us with patriotic zeal. What puzzles me though is, why do we we keep the patriot inside us in hibernation all year round only to revive it up on  August the 14th? Why is it that are we not ‘Proud Pakistanis’ during January, March or April?

This one-month patriotism is something that I could never manage to comprehend and it still strikes me as nothing short of hypocrisy . An average Pakistani man doing rounds of the visa office all year round, striving hard to get the green signal to land in the USA, turns his “Sab se pehlay Pakistan” mode on, once it is August. A woman proudly seeking to abstain from buying Pakistani products, simply because it would be below her dignity to purchase anything less than Loreal or Armani, is seen changing her facebook display picture to the green Pakistani flag and dedicating her day’s status in the love of the country.

Putting up display pictures or writing lengthy patriotic statuses showcasing your love for the country on Independence Day, might earn you a hundred ‘likes’ or comments or retweets but they in no way mean that you are lavishing on Pakistan the love that it deserves.

Any such claim must come with owning the country as yours. It doesn’t only mean  that you acknowledge the fact of being a Pakistani with pride, it also demands you to own everything about it- good or bad.

This means even if you remotely claim to be in love with it, own its people, own its products and with it, each and everything with the label ‘Made in Pakistan’ on it. Respect the people who are serving at various capacities, no matter how trivial you take their positions to be. Even a plumber has a role in nation building in how he fixes drainage pipes for the convenience  and cleanliness of others . Respect the brave soldiers vigilantly guarding our borders and do not disregard them on any slight slip they might make. If it were not them, we would not be sleeping sound as we do today. Not just this, respect the players who bring laurels for our homeland rather than passing derogatory statements on them when they even slightly turn you down.

Moreover, we are blessed with perhaps one of the richest culture, ever so diverse and dynamic. Celebrate it! It is our culture that tells the world about our identity and who we are. Wear shalwar kameez with pride, and don’t discard it for jeans and t-shirts. Own Urdu as your national language and speak it with pride rather than jabbering a farrago of half-learnt English. In short, take pride in all that’s yours.

To accept all as ours, must come with an acknowledgment that we can’t separate ourselves from that which looks bad around us. If we blame our politicians to be buried under heaps of corruption, it only reflects something about us. It’s not an alien phenomenon, it’s something we all are embroiled in, at different levels as we speak. Therefore,we don’t require a sincere government or a Tsunami for things to change for that matter. We can do away corruption once we root it out from within and things would actualize the same way outside.

And perhaps this is the panacea to all our whining about how our country is going down the precipice and how things just don’t show bright around us. All that is dark outside is because we have disowned the very country that defines us. How would things ever  change if we pretend to be outsiders and keep cursing the evils only we have sown.

The day we’d dare to change this, own what’s good and bad, and take responsibility to make things better, that day we’ll entitle ourselves to blow trumpets of patriotism and nationalism on Pakistan day, 14th August.

Also published here: http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/2013/08/pakistan-deserves-more-than-just-national-songs-and-flag-hositings/

Victory days are back.. and so are the smiles!

AFRIDI RISES!

“Of Shahid Afridi it can safely be said that cricket never has and never will see another like him. To say he is an allrounder is to say Albert Einstein was a scientist; it tells a criminally bare story.”- Osman Samiuddin. (ESPN Cricinfo)

The blue-eyed boy of the cricketing world, the darling of the crowd & the heartthrob of millions of girls, Shahid Khan Afridi, is back with a bang. A bang that sent the ball from a cricket stadium to a golf course! He confounded his critics with a stupendous knock of 88 runs against South Africa in Johannesburg. The seven mammoth sixes that he hit during his innings not only turned some heads but also changed some opinions. They sent in a clear message to the cricketing fraternity to beware, Afridi is still very much in the game.

Afridi, who had been out of form since almost a year and a half, was suggested by senior players and critics to retire from the game. But being the tiger that he is, Afridi did not give up. He worked and trained assiduously & got the reward. He was advised to bat calmly, but how can you ask a lion to act like a cat? Can you? Ofcourse, you cannot. You have to let him predate in his own style. Afridi might have been criticized a hundred times for his madcap batting, but admit it, that’s what we love about him! We love the smasher Afridi, we love the hitter Afridi, we love ‘Boom Boom’ Afridi!
This ravishing crowd-puller has a fan following second to none. These die-hard Afridiites did not turn their backs on him when he failed to perform during World T20 ’12. They did not leave their star alone when he again failed during the series against Australia in UAE, and still again against the arch-rivals India. Had it not been for the support and love of his loyal fans, Shahid Afridi would have called it quits long ago. These fans knew that the dark clouds hovering above their Afridi bhai’s career would soon move away.
With his astonishing performance, that can easily be called the GRAND-DADDY of all performances, Shahid Afridi has once again raised the hopes of his fans in specific, and the people of Pakistan, in general. Now it’s up to him not to disappoint them and give memorable performances one after another. It can certainly be said that the days are back when you will see him sending the ball all the way into the tiers. The days are back when you will see bowlers shaking at the sight of the 'lethal' Afridi.
 
Shahid Afridi is not going anywhere. He is here to play for a couple of more years and that is what everyone had wished for- to see him back in action- because cricket is not cricket without Afridi. Afridi the batsman has risen; let’s hope Afridi the bowler rises soon too!

Pakistan vs India- Let's keep our calm.

 

With Pakistan-India series around the corner, much hype has already been created both in the media and the social world. But if you don’t want your blood pressure to mount during the matches, take my advice, and stay away from over-confident media reports on Pakistan team’s performance. And if you happen to be on Twitter, do not log in until the series starts, because I’m sure you would not want your timeline to be flooded with over-confident tweets. This time, keeping your expectations high would be the most foolish thing to do, because our squad for this series is weaker than the giant Indians. But we can expect the unexpected from our ‘unpredictable’ boys, can we not?

Talking about the ODI squad, I have full confidence in Nasir Jamshed. He has shone whenever given a chance. M. Hafeez will be a good opener to start with. Need I say anything about him? They call him ‘Professor’, I ask why? Mr. Professor, forget about the captaincy equations and concentrate on your batting. We need you for your batting, not your captaincy.

Azhar Ali and Younis Khan are expected to steer the innings the usual way. YK at least doesn’t need to be told about what he has to do, he knows it already. You just have to give him some space and time. Also making their way into the national side, would be debutants Haris Sohail and Zulfiqar Babar. Both have performed well on the domestic front but what to be seen is that will they be able to muddle through the pressure of an international match, that too of one against India? Spearheaded by Umar Gul and with the ‘jaadugar’ Saeed Ajmal in it, the bowling line up seems strong enough.

Now to the T20 squad. You would be joking if you say you didn’t feel someone’s absence in the above paragraphs. Yes, I’m talking about Shahid Afridi, who couldn’t make it to the ODI squad, but is a member of the T20 team for the tour. Afridi, however, can play the ODI series too, if he manages to perform well in the T20s. With Afridi giving consistent poor performances over the past months, the selectors’ decision to exclude him from the ODI squad did not come much of a surprise to most of the people.


But, oh well, he’s Afridi and statistics and performances fail against him. He can silent his critics with just one stupendous knock. One match-winning show and all his poor performances would be forgotten. That’s how we Pakistani fans are.

Umar Akmal is the man we expect would outshine everyone else at the event. He never lets his country down and that’s what we love about him. He keeps our hopes alive till the very end. Remember World Twenty20 semifinal against Sri Lanka this year?

Ahmed Shahzad performed tremendously well for the Lahore Lions during the recent Faysal Bank T20 but what needs to be seen is that will he able to continue with his incredible form in India? Let’s hope for the affirmative.

Just as I’m about to end this article, the frenzy and tension regarding the series has already embraced me. Whatever may the result of the series be, one thing is definite that we’ll get to see some nail-biting encounters, exciting cricket and action packed performances that we have longed for, for quite some time now. May the best team win? NO! Let’s hope and pray Pakistan wins! Come on Pakistan, let’s paint the Indian soil green.

Also published here: http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/2012/12/pakistan-vs-india-lets-keep-our-calm/

We still bleed GREEN!

 
Why are we always overconfident and dead sure we’ll win when we have a match against India? Despite our past record of not winning any match against India in world cups, our nation always takes a match against India like it’s our cup of tea. Pumped up, overconfident & with hum tou jeetay gai type attitude, we gather to watch a match that we hope shall leave us dancing & hooting in the end. But no, that never happens. We are left heartbroken, shedding tears & arguing we wasted our day on a match that could not be ours.


Yes, our youth gets too much involved in cricket. For them, a match against India is like the biggest encounter ever, as some say
“Pakistan-India ka match final ka bhi baap hota hai” (Pakistan-India’s match is mightier than the final). I have noticed recently that our attitude towards our team has changed. We have become more optimistic. In the past, whenever the team lost a match, we used to disown them. That does not happen anymore. After a match you log in to sites like Facebook and Twitter, and you find messages
full of hope. The nation still backs the team. There are messages of love for the team. Now, we have started to understand that blaming our team for every loss is not going to do any good, but standing by their side, supporting them in times like these, shall surely boost up their morale for the upcoming matches.

Some would argue that we lost a match that we didn’t even try to win. If that’s the case, did India try to win their match against Australia? From Australia’s winning margin of 9 wickets, it is obvious that the answer is ‘No’. So, winning by a large margin does not mean that the other team never wanted to win. Winning is probably the only thing that everyone loves. When WE get so saddened
by our defeat, think what our players would be going through. Sitting in your TV lounge and commenting like a cricket expert is easy but going down there in the ground & performing is all a new level. So, it’s good our nation has started using their brains & supports their team no matter if they win or lose. If you cannot support them when they lose, don’t support them when they win.