Adil Najam
How do I feel today with Pakistan having lost to India in the Semi-Final of the 2011 Cricket World Cup?
I feel exactly as I did on November 4, 1987. I was at the Ghaddafi Stadium in Lahore, as a sports reporter for the newspaper The Muslim, covering the Semi-Final match between Pakistan and Australia in the 1987 World Cup. Pakistan was the clear favorites. Pakistan lost.
How did that feel? Pretty much as today feels. It felt like this:
But as a reader wrote on my earlier post, I am sad, but not angry. Nor am I ashamed or dejected. In an odd sort of way, I am fulfilled. We tried our best.
Today was not our best day; but frankly it was not our worst day either. There have been many days in recent weeks and months when I was ashamed of what was being done in my name. Today was not one of those days. Today, I took many blows, but I stand tall. Today, I wait for tomorrow. Because, tomorrow is another day.
Congratulations, Team India on a well-earned victory.
Thank you, Team Pakistan, for a month full of thrills and chills and making us come together as a country again. Your fielding was rather pathetic, but you have made us proud nonetheless!
Shez said – “It was a fabricated victory for India. No doubt about it.”
such certainty! only taliban and their various avatars have “No doubt” about conspiracies hatched in delhi, washington dc or tel aviv.
i am guessing you must have made a bank load of money betting on the match, given how you knew the outcome of matches played by india before hand? unless you are not of the betting sort, which you and your ilk rarely are, at least in public…wink, wink. behind closed doors….only khuda jaaney.
ChristianPak,
Just because the western media claims for something to be true doesn’t make it a FACT, they also told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Osama did 9/11 by living in some cave in Afghanistan!
Pak receives bad press in the western media due to being the only Muslim nuclear power or has this escaped you??. I do not believe that Pakistan/is were responsible for the Mumbai carnage that is another myth created by the media like the bogeymen Ajmal Kassab and Osama Bin Laden.
The question is that who killed the brave Indian cop Hemant Karkare and what was he about to expose?? Moreover, i don’t see you complaining about the Pakistanis that were killed by Indian terrorism in the Samjhauta express or currently by American drones in the Khyber region??.
Why would any Pakistani want to kill the Srilankans knowing that it would take away the world cup hosting rights from us so again we should ask that who gains from such terrorism?
If 400 million people living on the streets means “success” to you then i’d like to see what is failure!!? Pak is going through a difficult period but it’s times like these that seperate the patriot’s from the wannabe’s, success will soon come providing we elect the correct people to lead us.
On the cricketing front the Indian’s won because they were the best team though playing most matches on home soil with the crowd cheering them on certainly helped. Considering many of our top boys were missing perhaps we didn’t do that badly either but for the now traditionally laughable fielding together with the inability to handle pressure.
Constructive critisism is one thing but i expect a balanced view from people too!
IT was a game, we played well but maybe not well enough. Not that India was that great either. But now time to move on. Good for India that they won the World Cup this time. Next time it will be someone else. That’s how it goes.
It was a fabricated victory for India. No doubt about it. But the onus lies on the criminals in our cricket team and more importantly, on our shameless leaders. Pakistan’s defeat in the semifinal has raised numerous suspicions. Horrible fielding, lack of planning, and pathetic batting cost us the match or was it pre-planned?
Pakistani establishment is the one to blame if they really endorsed this so-called peace surrender where Indian team might play a single match in Karachi and then two in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Any sensible person — if there is one — should have rejected this stupid proposal.
Also the toss drama in final has cemented these doubts. Everyone knew that dew will help the team batting second despite the spray of chemicals. Did anyone notice that SL made just 9 runs in the first 5 overs? And then their poor fielding and bowling although they are known as the best in fielding in Asia.
oceanic, you are talking of the player I am talking of the person.On your terms, a player who fails and collapses as performer when he is assigned CAPTAINCY, certainly has character weakness.Tendulkar failed and this is not the only weakness.
Chandler, you are either an uneducated person or a faithful disciple of the safron fraud of Bombay.