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| Cricket in the post-Lahore-attack era! |
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
By Kaleem Omar
KARACHI: Imagine the scene: A cricket match is taking place in the Lahore Fort. It's an international match against a team from Mongolia, so the security is extra tight. All the regular cricketing nations have refused to play in Pakistan, even the valiant Sri Lankans. But the Mongolians have courageously stepped into the breech, on the theory that they were once the world's leading military superpower and had conquered most of Asia from Beijing to the Ural Mountains in Russia, with the finest light cavalry ever seen in history. "So what's a cricket match in Lahore," they said. "It should be a piece of cake."
Pakistanis are overjoyed that the Mongolians have agreed to play in this country, and Lahore's streets are full of cricket fans doing the bhangra. A huge cheer goes up from the crowd when Nawaz Sharif - himself a keen amateur cricketer - joins in on the dancing.
Lahorites are also over the moon that hundreds of fur-clad Mongolians have travelled all the way from their distant country to watch their team play its first-ever cricket match. The fact that nobody in Mongolia knows anything about the game is another matter. It doesn't bother Lahorites that there are no Michael Holdings or Javed Miandads in the Mongolian team. What has the good people of Lahore dizzy with delight is the enthusiasm being displayed by the Mongolians for the forthcoming match.
Slogans of "Mongolia Zindabad" rent the air. Ulan Bator (Mongolia's capital) and Lahore are declared sister cities.
At a pre-match press conference in one of the Lahore Fort's deepest dungeons, the Mongolian captain, who is said to be a direct descendant of Chengez Khan, is asked: "Aren't you worried about the safety of your team?" "Nyetnah!" he replies, using the Mongolian word for no. "We're Mongolians and we are never worried about anything, not even a cricket match in Lahore. After all, we didn't conquer virtually the whole of Asia by being worried. Indeed, there's no word in the Mongolian language for the word worry."
Pakistan Cricket Board officials, however, are worried sick that something might happen to the Mongolian team. That's why they have decided to hold the match in the Lahore Fort, instead of in the Gaddafi Stadium. As a further precautionary measure, the PCB has arranged for the Mongolian team to stay at an undisclosed underground facility. The walls of the secret facility are 10 feet thick and are made of heavily steel-reinforced concrete.
The steel and cement used in the concrete has been imported from Russia at a cost of 200 million dollars. PCB officials justify the expense by claiming that no cricket venue in Russia has ever been subjected to a terrorist attack.
When a Pakistani journalist tries to point out that this could be due to the fact that no cricket match has every been played in Russia, an irate PCB official shuts him up by saying, "Stop quibbling over petty details." Warming to his theme, he adds, "Look at it this way: Chengez Khan didn't conquer most of Asia by allowing himself to get bogged down in such petty matters, did he? If he had, he would even have been able to leave Ulan Bator, let alone sweep thousands of miles across Asia to the gates of Moscow."
A pro-PCB lifafa-journalist agrees, chiming in with the comment that the Lahore Fort has huge gates too. "The Fort has been standing since the days of the Mughal emperors," he adds, "so I'm sure it can easily survive anything that any no-good bunch of terrorists throw at it. But some skeptical journalists are still not convinced.
They didn't have rocket-launchers and surface-to-surface missiles in the days of the Mughals," one skeptical journalist points out. Furious PCB officials react to this comment by ordering the doubting Thomas to leave the press conference. As he departs, he is heard to mutter, "Don't say I didn't warn you."
What he doesn't know is that the PCB officials - who are nothing if not super-efficient - have left nothing to chance. The 40-foot walls of the Lahore Fort have been raised by another forty feet. Fifty-caliber Browning machine-guns have been mounted in the embrasures on top of the walls, ready to lay down a withering hail of fire in the event of a terrorist attack. For good measure, 200 long-rage artillery guns ring the fort.
"The guns are capable of firing 100-pound high-velocity shells all the way into India," says a PCB official, who belongs to an army artillery regiment and is on deputation with the PCB for the duration of the match.
"Why guns that can fire shells all the way into India," a journalist asks. "In case RAW - the Indian intelligence agency - tries to get up to its usual dirty tricks," says the artillery officer. Don't forget they're still gnashing their teeth over their intelligence failure in Mumbai and would give a month's salary for a chance to damage Mongolia's traditionally friendly relations with Pakistan. So we can't be too careful."
At this point another PCB official pipes up, listing some of the other security measures that have been put in place for the match. "A two-mile diameter double-perimeter of barbed wire encircles the fort," he says.
"The barbs on the wire have been coated with cyanide, which would result in a horrible instantaneous death for anybody trying to get through the perimeter to carry out a terrorist attack. Moreover, the barbed wire is not just any old barbed wire; it is super-strength barbed wire that has been bought by the PCB from the American authorities at Guantanamo Bay at a cost of 75 million dollars. We, at PCB believe that nothing is too good for our Mongolian guests and we have spared no expense to make their stay in Lahore as comfortable and as safe as possible."
"But won't the Mongolian team be vulnerable when they're travelling from the underground facility where they are stating to the Lahore Fort venue of the match?" a journalist asks.
"Not at all," says a PCB official with a smug look on his face. "You see, the thing is that the Mongolian team will be traveling in T-80 tanks equipped with reactive armour. These tanks are invulnerable to everything short of a nuclear bomb. We've bought the tanks from the Ukraine at a cost of 300 million dollars. We think it's an investment that's well worth the cost."
"But what are you going to do with the tanks after the match?" a journalist asks. "Well we've got two options," says the PCB official with a superior smile. "One option is to sell the tanks to Sri Lanka for 600 million dollars, which would enable us to earn a profit of 300 million dollars on this account alone. The other option is to retain the tanks ourselves, to be used to provide security to the next foreign cricket team that visits Pakistan."
"But is a visit by any other foreign cricket team to Pakistan on the cards, given all the scurrilous comments that people like Chris Broad have been making?" a journalist asks.
"More visits are most certainly on the cards," says the PCB official with some heat. "You shouldn't believe all the rubbish you read in some sections of the press."
"Can you name some of the teams?" several journalists ask, all shouting to be heard above the din.
"Well," says the PCB official, "the Maldives have expressed an interest, as have teams from San Marino, Pago Pago, Iceland and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg - to name only a few. What I can tell you is this: given the new security measures we have put into place, international cricket in Pakistan is going to flourish as never before because Lahore now has the safest cricket venue in the world. The new facilities are even safer than Fort Knox where America, as you may know, keeps its gold reserves. And you can't get much safer than that!"
"But America has no gold reserves left - they're all in China now," says one journalist with a smirk.
Not to be outdone, the PCB official retorts, "I'll have you know that we've taken that into account as well. That's why we have drawn up a plan to set up a cricket coaching academy in China. Of course, we may have a bit of a problem with what we're going to call a Chinaman delivery when the Chinese start playing cricket. We at the PCB will welcome any suggestions in this regard from you gentlemen of the press. Interaction with the press is all part of PCB new open media policy. Call it glasnost or perestroika or what you like."
"But weren't glasnost and perestroika responsible for the break-up of the Soviet Union?" asks a journalist who has a degree in political science from Karachi University.
"No," says a PCB official who also has a degree in political science from the same university. "What was responsible for the Soviet Union's break-up is the fact that Gorbachev doesn't play cricket.
"Neither does Indian Prime Minister Mohan Singh," says the journalist. "Exactly!" says the PCB official with a huge grin spreading across his gunshot-scarred face.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
