I know there are going to be plenty of posts related to this topic and the time is an emotional one for most
Pakistanis.
The real question remains , where does Pakistan go from here?
It will be the question of the week or perhaps even the month.
NZ will probably be back home safely in the next 24 hours, unfazed by the events that have unfolded (whether rightly or wrongly) and will be sitting in the comfort of their families. Probably, the would feel they
avoided death or deep injury had they been sitting in Pakistan playing a game of cricket. I don't blame them. Stories have more power than actual events and if the PM of a country is telling a story about being in danger,
no rightful soul will continue to play cricket.
Indian government would probably be gloating at the financial losses incurred to Pakistan by the last minute
withdrawal of the NZ team. Their IPL is going well and they are financially in a position to dictate terms
to all the cricket boards.
The fans will feel the emotional upheaval of missing a few days of cricket and then continue with their lives.
So who lost?
If there is one thing I have learned over many years in and out of Pakistan is that perception is all that matters.The world moves on perception. If the same incident had happened in reverse, possibility, we would have continued the tour, would have got governmental assurances and we would have been more than happy to oblige and fulfill our obligations.
However, for Pakistan the perception is very negative. For those, who have never visited here, mostly its about reports and alerts and threats. For them, even a small lapse is real security threat (I hardly blame them). I was in Hartford once after 6 pm and every person I saw in the shadow looked like carrying a knife. Needless to say, I drove out of the city and never returned. Is Hartford unsafe? Perhaps. But the perception is even worse. And even I, being a brave warrior, managed to evade the city's heart at the thought of being attacked.
For NZ, England and Australia, the perception of Pakistan was always a safe country, bordering its arch rival India on one side and the unstable Afghanistan on the other. They were always gonna fly at the first hint of beforeyoucansaysomethinghappened incidents.
It took 15 years of untroubled waters to get a country's 2nd reserves to visit our nation and to try to hold a cricket
match.
Yet it took only 15 seconds to call it off at the mere possibility of something could go wrong.
You cant blame the players here.
However, you cant help but be peeved that NZ cricket shafted us right before the morning of the match.
The sad situation is that we don't have the PR to keep NZ in the country. We have no say, no team that can convince NZ that the ground situation is much better than their intelligence. We don't have a good standing or media relations team. In my opinion, PM should have done everything in his power to stop NZ from leaving and try to forge some sort of communication or trust.
To build some sort of plank to walk on.
Not because we desperately need NZ to play on this tour.
But we needed this tour, to bring cricket back
And now its gone.
The years of trust we had built is in doldrums.
Will any team tour again in the near future? Probably not.
Its Pakistan, that lost everything tonight.
