Owais Mughal
We hope that you have already voted in our opinion poll on Cricket World Cup here. Following is the second in series of our World Cup specials.
Probably an an old news now but if you have not heard about it yet then on March 7, there was a fire scare at the hotel where Pakistan and South Africa’s cricket teams were staying. The photo below is from AFP and it shows Pakistan’s cricket team sitting on the side walk after getting evacuated from the hotel in Trinidad.
While we are all glad that no one was hurt, there are few statements from the players which I enjoyed very much and want to share.
Shahid Afridi said:
“I have no idea what happened. I had just woken up when the security man knocked on the door and said ‘get out of the room’. But I went back to sleep. Then he knocked again, and said ‘get out of the room’. Then I did and went downstairs.”
This reminds me of a famous couplet which goes like this:
teray zanoo pe meiN sar rakh kar abhi sota hooN
inqalaab aaye to mujh ko bhi jagaana saaqi
Danish Kaneria ‘s following statement appears in the Dawn on March 9:
“We were not scared about anything. We come from Pakistan and this type of thing happens regularly at home,�
Shahid Afridi also said:
“We were planning to go to the beach but we had left our shorts in the room.” (so we couldn’t go the beach)
Pakistan’s media manager Pervez Mir confirmed:
“The boys had a day off so they wanted to go to the beach, but this incident has altered their program.”
It has also been reported in national press that captain Inzamam was in serious match consultation with his best friend and bowling coach Mushtaq Ahmed when they were asked to evacuate. Inzamam came out and sat on the street with a face expression shown in the photo to the left. Looking at this face expression and noting that he was talking to Mushtaq before coming out reminds me of this famous sher:
woh hai mushtaq aur hum bezaar
ya ilaahi ye maajra kiya hai?
West Indian authorities have promised an investigation into this matter and they claim it was not a fire but a gas leak.
Lets see what Mohammad Sami had to say about this gas leak.
“I saw a lot of smoke coming out from the corridor so I ran down.”
Since we don’t know what actually happened therefore without reaching any conclusions, I want to pen-off this post with this sher:
dekh to dil ki jaan se uThta hai
ye dhuwaaN saa kahaaN se uThta hai
BBC has reported that the Pakistani players have been instructed by PCB to speak in Urdu while talking to any media during the World Cup. The PCB media liason P.J Mir said that the Pakistani players’ comments are taken out of context when they talk in english, so when facing the media during the world cup they will be talking in Urdu. He also gave Danish Kaneria’s example!, P.J Mir said that Kaneria, while talking to the press regarding the fire scare said “it happens”, which was misquoted as if Kaneria said that this kind of thig is a commonplace in Pakistan.
I don’t know about you folks, to me this news was a tad funny!
Owais, my favorite is Danish Kaneria saying: “We were not scared about anything. We come from Pakistan and this type of thing happens regularly at home.â€
A different angle as well as different perspective[obviously mine] :-)
http://kadnan.com/blog/2007/03/09/bechari-pakistan i-cricket-team/
:)… Also interestingly 4 teams were staying in that hotel. 2 minnows, Canada and Ireland and 2 “biggies” Pakistan and S.Africa. When the fire (or smoke, or gas or whatever it was) happened in the morning, the 2 minnows had already gone to the ground for practise/exersize, while the 2 biggies were still at the hotel and had to be evacuated… The minnows have to work extra hard, it seems in cricket. I am seriously hoping that atleast one of the bottom 8 teams manages an upset and qualifies for the Super 8 (although not at the cost of Pakistan:)
LOL!