I am usually someone who is used to sitting around in my living room and watching cricket with 2 or sometimes 3 people and a remote control. At other times I prefer to be alone, the commentary turned down to mute, the curtains pulled down and across, in the glow of a sole 50 Walt bulb. My cricket-system as such is used to calm, unruffled moods; there is an indifference to time and circumstance outside cricket.

I am aware of every little half chance, the could-have-been moments, the dropped catch, the chance that fell short, every appeal, its duration, intensity and result, the batsmen’s scores, the strike rates, the over rates and the run rates. But this is not what you get at the NSK, or at least not unless you’re nicely seated in one of the hospitality boxes inside the pavilion. But then again, that’s precisely what makes yesterday’s adventure, and it really was an adventure, such a stirring, unforgettable experience.

Sure you miss the feeling of being totally in control apropos the match situation, but so what. So what if you can’t really discuss the finer points of Yasser Arafat’s action, or distinguish between Trescothick and Prior immediately when they’ve come out to open, but only after a while.

At least you get a close up look at Salman Butt and Andrew Strauss (both of whom spend the majority of their time patrolling the square boundary behind which I resided), at least you can be proud that Inzi, Blackwell, Shoaib Akhtar and Flintoff can be recognised no matter where they are (it is not for my own visual satisfaction alone that I demand of more chubbier cricketers!).

Best of all, Sami, Younis Khan and Anderson’s pitiable hairstyles remain a distant, outlying sight, you don’t have to bother closing your eyes on exposure, the risk of potential gastrointestinal and minor psychological disorders are more or less eliminated from 100 yards away, when everyone’s hair appears the same.

Cricket on television, barring the commentary, in-between overs advertisements, and the little Biscuit, Bank or Beverage logo that pops up at every four, six or wicket, is a very fulfilling experience. You have a full speed replays, slow motion replays, super slow motion replays, snickometers, trackers, Hawkeye, magnifiers, and views from several different angles. But unless you go and watch a cricket match for real, you don’t realise how some elements of the game just don’t get their due. In many ways watching cricket on television is like an optical illusion.

And I only realised that my self when I glanced through the highlights package last night amongst superfluously excited siblings and family members who were on a quest to locate them selves in the crowd. The NSK looks so much smaller on TV; Fred looks only big, when in reality he is everything like a giant. And the bats, those look way, way bigger then they are in real, from 100 yards across and in the hands of the players, they look more like toothpicks. In a strange realisation some players look larger then they are actually.

And then there are the shots themselves. Remember that six from Razzaq that hit the roof? When you see something like that in real life, steadily standing up and cheering as it’s trajectory goes higher and higher, and finally exploding into a plethora of screams and cheers as the umpire raises his arms to signal six, you feel a bit surreal.

“That wasn’t a six” you tell your self, “it was a 12”; a real monster. The TV cameras don’t do any justice to shots like those. It was plain ridiculous how human that shot looked in the highlights, relative to how superhuman it appeared in real-time. How could some one possibly hit a cricket ball so hard and so long?

As you sing along Strings’ Hay Koi Hum Jaisa (Is There Anyone Like Us?) with the others, you’re also recovering from shock, the shock that Razzaq isn’t part human part robot like in The Bicentennial Man, but he’s actually just a strong bloke, in his mid 20s, who likes hitting a cricket ball hard and make it look ridiculously easy. It’s a pleasant shock I tell you. It gives you great joy.

When I looked back on it on TV that’s when my grin was as its Colgate-addvertisment-esque widest, this is when you know you can tell your great grand kids one day that ‘I was there’. Not that this match will be remembered in the same way as something truly astounding in history of the game, despite the flurry or records we’d broken in the process of giving a first class mauling to England, one-day matches, simply because there are so many played, are rarely spoken of in that context, but still.

That’s why when I tune in to watch the 4th ODI at Rawalpindi, even though I’ll have access to every form of comprehensive coverage I can ask for, I’ll know what I’m missing out on. There isn’t any substitute to being there and experiencing, and being a part of that atmosphere, nothing in the entire wide world.

Wish I was there, Zainub, though I cannot imagine watching cricket "dry". I always am amused when you mention "pitiable" hairstyles, you should have seen the early 80's-OUCH!!!!
By the way a 50 watt bulb is not healthy to watch TV with, not for 8 hours a day and 5 days on the trot, please take care of your eyes Zainub, and turn as many lights on as you can.

Truly, you make me so jealous. I wish I was in Karachi... It is my deepest desire to experience such a match. The prospect of this is dim, at least for a while. I thank you though, because your words pulled me in that jubilant crowd and for a moment, I felt I was there.
Thank you

Hi,

today I was treated to a spectacular scene at my work place, not only were there blokes celebrating the world "class mauling" of an "old rival" by your team, we also had the opportunity to pat ourselves on the back for the best 5 wicket haul by Ntini against Australia!
These days when sooooo much emphasis is placed on the politics, preparation, ultra slow video and other the modern machinations of coaching the true element of 'joyous' spirit that Razzaq and Ntini have is lost.
When 22 young blokes get down to a strip of grass and are just told to do what they love to do - bowl the crap out the other blokes or to smash leather off the ball - you get what we and your 40 000 fellows felt like. Yes an opportunity to rub it under the overdogs nose - feels great! But there is more than this, perhaps it is also to be able to say "we can!"
For us hunched for arround a small tinny transistor radio not daring to breath lest we loose the precarious signal from the WACA, while sneeking from the boss (who was watching on the sly in the boardroom) the intensity of the day's cricket, from early this morning loosed those earhy bounds of fear and loss that grip us in a stangledhold of one average season to the next - to something more hopeful, that the game is bigger and more connecting than we ever prevoiusly thought - bariers are broken down - boundries are crossed (I even saw someone from internal audit speaking to a sales rep, wow, about the events on the pitch) -
This is what makes us mere mortals believe that the sublime as demostrated by your team is just here, close, and only a few overs away. That tonight, on the street, under the floodlit pitch from the streetlamps, me and my pal will take our sons and daughters and explain, while piching gentle underarmers, how Razzaq massaquered the Poms and Ntini gutted the fragile Ausies.
Who cares that they will not read about it in 20 years time? Or that they were not even on the same field? What they will remember is the telling of the ethusiasm of these blokes and the joy that can be had from doing what you love - and that breaks all the records of batting or bowling and scores more 4s, 6s and 5ers that were ever set.

Cheers

Sean

Very interesting piece of writing. I have been to NSK for quite alot of matches and after reading your article it looked like I am back there. Specially Abdul Razzaq's six. Even though last time i saw him hitting at NSK was in 2000 against England, still all of that atmosphere that passion that electricity, i would call it, among the crowd is running like a movie in my mind right now. You don't get "Girti hui deewar ko aik dhakka aur do" like chants on television. Watching a game in a stadium is far more interesting and has it's own charms than watching it on television even after all those techincal facilities of replays etc. Your article has made me miss all that celebrations on 6s, on 4s, on appels from Pakistan side. I am missing NSK and the beauty of a cricket match when you watch it in the stadium!