The morning of March 3, 2009, when Pakistani cricket fans were waiting to see the batting of Salman Butt and Younis Khan on the third day of the Test match against Sri Lanka at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore. This was the second match of the ongoing Test series between Sri Lanka and Pakistan where captain Shoaib Malik did not hesitate to decide to bowl as soon as the toss fell in his favour. In the first innings of the match, Sri Lanka scored 606 runs while Pakistan was struggling to reach the top of the mountain. Their turn did not come. In a few minutes, instead of the enchanting sound of bat and ball, the fluttering sounds of fast flying wings of helicopters were echoing.
It has been almost 13 years since the attack on the Sri Lankan team. During this time many changes have taken place in Pakistan politically and administratively. Governments have come and gone. From Zardari to Nawaz Sharif and now Imran Khan is holding the power reins, similarly, after Dr. Naseem Ashraf, Ejaz Butt, Zaka Ashraf, Najam Sethi, Shahryar Khan, Ehsan Mani, Rameez Raja is now heading the cricket watchdog in Pakistan.
One thing was common in all these changes was to bring cricket back to Pakistan. It took many years to clear the dark clouds of this terrible morning in Pakistan.
The first attempt to populate the empty grounds took place three years later but the shadow of terror continued everywhere. Who would have been willing to come here and play. Imagine the top heads of the PCB sitting together and discussing plans for the revival of cricket in Pakistan. Suddenly a suicide attack on TV screens in some part of the country appears. Can anyone imagine the frustration on the faces in the room. When the authorities looked around and considered the possibilities of which team to start from, the Western world was already out of options. India was impossible and Sri Lanka wasn’t a possibility. Under the influence of Hasina Wajid, Bangladesh also became out of question. Afghanistan is left behind but its own team cannot take the risk of playing in Kabul or Kandahar.
Nevertheless, in these circumstances, the PCB officials decided to play the tortoise trick instead of making a big fuss. In 2011, an international team visited Pakistan for the first time in a decades, marking the starting point for the return of cricket. The Afghan team came to Pakistan, then Kenya visited Pakistan in 2014. Cricket fans remember the moments that Indian media reported on the arrival of the Kenyan team in Pakistan. But one thing was different in the arrival of anonymous Kenyan players that this was the first time when a non-Asian team came to Pakistan after 5 years.
The Zimbabwean team’s tour of Pakistan in 2015 gave Pakistan cricket fans a chance for the first time to talk about the return of cricket to the ICC with some confidence. After which World XI, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh participated, meanwhile the Pakistan Super League’s small sapling also began to take shape with the hope that Pakistan cricket will take shade in it.
The relocation of PSL from Dubai to the empty fields of Pakistan has really given impetus to the cricket comeback campaign. Thirteen years have passed since all this happened. Now that the Australian team is on a visit to Pakistan, it seems that the arrival of the strongest cricket team in Pakistan is an announcement that cricket is back in the country.
