Pakistan’s hopeless show leaves fans high and dry

DUBAI: The Zayed Cricket Stadium is in the middle of nowhere and Wednesday is a working day. But that didn’t stop several thousand fans to throng the venue for what was Asia Cup’s virtual semifinal.

Since UAE is Pakistan’s home away from home you would think that most of the fans who turned up for their Super Fours game against Bangladesh must have been Pakistanis. Well, you guessed wrong.

The major portion of the crowd on Wednesday were supporting Bangladesh. And this wasn’t the first time that there was a bigger crowd support for their rivals despite the fact that UAE is Pakistan cricket’s adopted home

During the best part of the Asia Cup, Pakistan didn’t get the crowd support that was expected. Baring the Hong Kong match where a small crowd of Pakistani supporters were still big enough to outnumber any Hong Kong fans, in almost all their other Asia Cup games Pakistan’s opponents had more support.

The Indians are more affluent. Most of the Pakistan-India match tickets that were put on sale online by the ACC were snapped up by Indian fans. That’s why in both the pool A game in Dubai in September 19 and Sunday’s Super Fours game in Dubai, Indian supporters outnumbered their Pakistani counterparts by a big margin. But even in the two other games against Afghanistan and Bangladesh in Abu Dhabi their rivals seemed to enjoy the bigger share of crowd support.

So why have Pakistani fans shunned them?

“The way our team lost against India in the first match kept many of us away,” said Amir, a Pakistan fan who works in a Dubai bank.“The way this team has performed why should we buy tickets and waste time and money to watch them,” remarked Hameed, a local businessman of Pakistani origin.

Many of the Pakistani fans who did attend their team’s matches in the Asia were left disappointed. “This is a pathetic team and unless we make changes there is no way I’m coming back to watch them play,” commented Gul as he walked out of the stadium on Wednesday night.