I got opportunity to watch the Pakistan – South Africa T20 match, a game which was part of the ongoing T20 Cricket World Cup, at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) few days ago. Our team was not performing well at that time and had lost two pool matches against our traditional rival India and Zimbabwe.
However, when I reached the venue I was highly impressed to see that a large number of Pakistanis from Sydney and other cities of Australia had travelled to support Green Shirts on a weekday. I also had taken one large Pakistani flag with me. Pakistanis were dancing Bhangra around Dhol players and were so excited.
Later we all moved to the ground and took our allocated seats. More than 90% of the spectators were supporting Pakistan. South Africa had very little presence of their fans in the ground. The game started and as usual our opening batting pair Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan couldn’t score well once again. I was expecting that crowd would chant slogans against them, but to my surprise no one criticised them but welcomed the next batsmen. They kept supporting the team. Not only this, but they also appreciated the South African players whenever they took a wicket or scored a four or sixer.
Other thing that impressed me was our general behaviour towards each other. A Pakistani family sitting next to me offered food, although we had never met before. All over the stadium there was a great harmony between Pakistani people belonging from different areas in Pakistan. The most appreciable thing was that no one chanted a slogan against the present Pakistani government or the armed forces, which I was expecting due to the current political instability in Pakistan.
I can proudly claim that Pakistani Australians are the best overseas Pakistanis in the world who are patriot, mature and open hearted. No matter someone is from Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Multan, Haiderabad, Faislabad, Gilgit, Peshawar or any part of Pakistan, they all love each other and support our sports teams.
So…. The good news is that we are going to play the final match of T20 World Cup at the MCG (also known as ‘G’ locally). In 1992 MCG proved very lucky for us when we beat England in the final of ICC World Cup, under the captaincy of Imran Khan. Now, We will play once again against England, under the captaincy of Babar Azam, who is in his form once again. I wish our team the very best of luck and hope that history will repeat itself and Insha Allah we will lift the trophy once again… aur who bhi Melbournce mein 😊.