Pakistan cricket team is trending with the tag of the most unpredictable team in the global map of ICC during the ongoing Champions Trophy. But unlike the team, Pakistani fans and their reactions have become quite predictable.
It is a known fact that incidents of heart attacks, breaking of television sets, tearing team posters and twitter trolling/abusing occur when we lose a big game. Whereas, fans start dancing on the traditional dhol beat, flying kisses are being sent to the players, the slogans like ‘we love you team Pakistan’ start trending the moment our team gets a victory.
It was quite evident in the knockout match of Champions Trophy when we were bashing Pakistan team so badly during their dramatic batting collapse against a mediocre Sri Lankan bowling attack. But as soon as the team was through to the victory line, we took a U turn and declared team Pakistan the best team in the world.
Sadly, this emotional switch on and switch off isn’t getting unnoticed and our beloved cricketers are pretty much aware of the fact that if they lose today, the nation would be harsh but things would calm down in the next game.
It was quite evident in the knockout match of Champions Trophy when we were bashing Pakistan team so badly during their dramatic batting collapse against a mediocre Sri Lankan bowling attack. But as soon as the team was through to the victory line, we took a U turn and declared team Pakistan the best team in the world.
It is interesting fact shared by many cricketers themselves that they don’t read any newspaper, avoid press talks and most importantly don’t see their twitter timeline when they perform poorly. But when a victory comes their way, you can’t stop them scrolling down their twitter timeline to uncover the endless praising thread by emotional fans.
I understand that the love we have for cricket and cricketers is natural and gets unstoppable when our team secures a victory especially in a big event like Champions Trophy. But we need to understand that we are overdoing a bit to spoil our cricket team.
If today our players are going for selfish approach is because we have let them adopt that attitude. If I was a player knowing that if my fifty would ensure my spot in the playing XI and I will be praised on social media even if the team loses, I would rather concentrate on scoring fifty because why to put in extra effort when I will be praised in any case. Likewise if I would get the love and support of the fans for winning by the slightest margin against Sri Lanka then it doesn’t matter losing by a bigger margin against India.
If we keep on singing songs like “Tum jeeto ya haaro humen tum se pyar hai” “you win or lose, we love you”, trust me it will not do any better to our cricket team because what we need to understand is that it does matter. It does matter, when we don’t win a big game despite having big names in the team.
It does matter when we see our team dropping down to No.8 in world rankings. It does matter when we see the much younger team Bangladesh chasing 300+ targets comfortably and our top batsmen fall out like autumn leaves. It does matter!
I must quote the words of Kevin Pietersen’s post match comments when he played a match winning knock of 88* runs to get the important victory for Quetta Gladiators against Lahore Qalandars.
“I don’t care if I score a 0 or score this… I don’t care about receiving this nonsense (prize money) as long as team gets over the line”
A bit harsh but this is the kind of approach our players should adopt in order to win big games. Similarly this is the kind of approach that the fans need to adopt as fans especially when our team reached the semi-finals of Champions Trophy. We can compromise on a fighting defeat but not on an easy exit.
Like all Pakistanis I would also wish that we play as a unit and beat England in the semi-finals. However, if the scenario changes, I will certainly not be amongst those to sing, “you win or lose, we love you.”