The anatomy of grief (Pakistan cricket version)

A Pakistani cricket fan does not yearn for a win or success, all they want is a fight.

Listen to article 1x 1.2x 1.5x

Grief, as they say, comes in stages. Denial: Maybe this was just a trial, and the real tournament will commence now. Bargaining: Okay, God, you took this from us, but could that please mean we are winning the World Cup two years later? Depression: What is the point of anything? Anger: Who are these people? Who allowed them to hold a bat? Banish them.

The Pakistani cricket fan often oscillates between these stages — before a tournament commences, when it begins, and after it ends. It would be the stuff of dreams if they were given some respite. They do not even yearn for a win or a prolonged period of success. No, all they want is some quiet; a period where nothing happens, where they have nothing to worry about.

However, for this Pakistani fan, the Champions Trophy 2025, which ended with a blockbuster final in the UAE on Sunday, was anything but quiet.

Once upon a time…

About three weeks ago, there were great hopes and dreams attached to the tournament. After all, Pakistan hosting an international cricket event at home after almost three decades is a big deal.

If nothing, the lime green advertising scaffolding of the tournament that lined every flat surface in the country was an indication; as were the long queues of people waiting to buy tickets outside courier offices and the eager fans following last-minute stadium renovation updates.

The thing is that Pakistani fans’ relationship with their cricket team is very much like that with a spouse of unpredictable temperament — you never know if they will bring you flowers or forget your anniversary, cook dinner or just not show up home.

There are numerous cliches about the Green Shirts being unpredictable and mercurial, so much so that you never know which version of the boys might show up; the one that plays like a six-time World Cup champion or the one that falls at the first hurdle.

But when something so large — cricket coming back home, defending our only title, a chance at glory — is at stake, even the most pessimistic of us would hope the team shows up; if not as winners, then just as competitors, as defenders.

Unfortunately, for us, there is hardly any getting out of this wretched cycle of sadness, anger and denial.

To hope or not to hope

Here, I implore you to notice how one stage of grief permanently eludes the Pakistan cricket fan: acceptance.

When a ramshackle and incomplete-looking squad is announced, one starts to doubt their cricket knowledge and, for a brief moment, even begins to trust the management’s judgment. But when the said squad, in the opening match of the tournament, puts up a performance against New Zealand that qualifies as a lesson in the masterclass of how not to play cricket, one tries to grasp onto whatever hope they can find.

The emotional anatomy of a cricket fan in Pakistan is held together by a few intangible threads. A small cockroach of hope, that keeps its beady eyes bright and scrawny legs shuffling, even after having been smacked with the heel of a shoe several times. A smidgen of delusion that would put even the most faithful to shame, superstition that borrows from most mythologies and yet supersedes them.

Any veteran of an unstable marriage would give you the same advice: after a certain point, it is best to give up hope. But this is a maturity that hasn’t yet touched the Pakistani cricketing fraternity. In this perpetual limbo of sporting grief, they haven’t yet felt the relief of acceptance.

So despite the disappointment and disillusionment Pakistan cricket fans are thoroughly trained in, the defeat against New Zealand in Karachi stung. It is one thing to lose, but another thing entirely to play cricket that is limp and uninspired — to make the same untidy death-bowling mistakes as you made in the four games prior, to bat timidly without any conviction. Some say that Vigo, the black cat that made a cameo during the match, caused the team bad luck — I would say that the cat was the unlucky one.

But despite the loss, the particularly obstinate of us didn’t give up hope.

The journey to acceptance

Over the past few years, India versus Pakistan has become a spineless fixture, as of late, held together more so by nostalgia and abstract tribalism than by truthful sporting prowess. In their past ODI encounters, India has heavily dominated proceedings, with Pakistan often simply falling short, flailing, and giving up.

But with the magnanimity of what was at stake in this tournament, and how important it was to stay alive in it, even the most cynical of us would once again revive the impertinent cockroach of hope for one last dance.

A hollow squad, a politically disrupted organisational process, managerial delays and setbacks are all the things that fans can’t control. But what they can control are their expectations and their hopes. The hypotheses of what’s wrong with a team dissipate once a match starts — from then on, all of them can be proven wrong.

For all the talk of Pakistan’s unpredictability, however, all hypotheses were proven right. The batting crumbled, partly due to haste and incompetence, partly due to stupidity. The bowling was flat and uninspired, eyes glazed over, just looking to survive. The fielding — well, the less said, the better.

To lose is one thing, to not even try is another. I’m not sure if the loss is what is disappointing to the Pakistan fan — sporting losses, after all, seem to be the one thing the country is abundantly resourced in.

No, what this particular loss, in this particular tournament, might have done, is be the final nail in many cricket-watching coffins. At long last, with the impenetrable cockroach being dead and divorce papers finally signed, the grieving Pakistan cricket fan might finally find acceptance.

Header image: Cricket fans in Karachi watch a live broadcast of the Champions Trophy match between India and Pakistan on a big screen. — AFP

Click here to read article