So who are you supporting in the Pakistan Super League?
The Pakistan Super League,
the most recent entrant to the plethora of domestic T20 leagues, is finally
here. Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta are taking part in the inaugural
PSL, which is taking place in Dubai and Sharjah.
So which PSL team are you
supporting?
The answer should be quite simple,
shouldn’t it?
You should be supporting your hometown!
But it really isn’t that simple.
Besides the team names,
there isn’t much else that associates the teams with the cities.
Karachi is being captained
by a Sialkoti who has spent the past decade leading the Sialkot Stallions to
title after title in the domestic T20 competitions; while Islamabad is being
led by a Faisalabadi who has spent his lifetime in domestic cricket captaining
his hometown. Quetta’s captain is a born and bred Karachi-ite. Peshawar seem to
have got it right by appointing a Pathan as their leader, but is he really a
Pathan considering he lives in Karachi and has been captaining Karachi for over
a decade now? Only Lahore have got it right with their captain being a true
blue Lahori boy.
So how do you support your
hometown when the men leading the teams are not even from your hometown?
Even the composition of the
squads does not represent the respective cities.
Karachi’s batting line up
comprises of a West Indian (Simmons), a Bangladeshi (Shakib), two Englishmen
(Vince and Bopara), and two Sialkotis (Malik and Nauman). Their bowling attack
is being led by a Punjabi boy (Aamer) with ample support from two Pindi Boys
(Imad and Tanvir). The only thing Karachi about the Kings is their
wicketkeeper, the relatively unknown, Saifiullah Bangash.
Islamabad United are made up
of Karachi-ites (Sherjeel, Khalid Latif, Sami, Ashar Zaidi) and Punjabis (Babar,
Imran Khalid, Irfan, Rumman Raees). Not to mention the few West Indians (Russel
and Badree), the Aussie (Watson), and the English wicketkeeper (Sam Billings).
To add further taste to the team, there is another born and bred Faisalabadi,
Misbah’s trusted comrade Saeed Ajmal. The only think Islamabadi about the team
is the one and only Umar Amin; well not really considering he is a Pindi boy!
Quetta Gladiators’ batting
is dominated by a Lahori boy (Shehzad) and two Englishmen (Pietersen and
Wright). Their spinners, Nawaz and Babar, are from Rawal Pindi and Okara
respectively; while their pacer is from Peshawar (Gul). There is a Zimbawean
(Chigumbura) and an Afghani (Nabi) in the mix as well. There is absolutely
nothing Quetta about the Gladiators! Even the owner is a Karachi-ite!
The Zalmis’ top order
contains a player from Sargodha who has opened for and captained Faisalabad for
majority of his career (Hafeez), a Bangladeshi (Tamim), an Englishman (Malan),
and a Lahori (Kamran Akmal). However, the Zalmis have found some identity in
their bowling attack through Junaid Khan and the man with the
Pathan-like-big-hands Asghar. Supporting them is a Lahori boy, Wahab.
Lahore Qalandars is the only
team that can truly stake claim to being a true city team! After all Lahore
Lahore Hai… Their captain, Azhar Ali, is from Lahore. Their key batsman, Umar
Akmal, is from Lahore. Their premier spinner, Zafar Gohar, is from Lahore. The
Punjabi boys, Hammad Azam, Naveed Yasin, and Adnan Rasool, also sort of
represent Lahore. Add to the mix a Multani (Sohaib), two pathans (Rizwan and
Zohaib), a West Indian (Gayle), and a South African (Delport) and you have the
Qalandars, a team that pretty much lives up to its name. But it all goes for a
toss when you realize that the owner is a petrochemical firm based in Qatar.
So can you really support a
team from your home town just because it is named after your city? Probably the
Lahoris can. Maybe the Pathans too. But for the rest, I don’t think so.
I’ve lived in the UAE pretty
much my entire life. I do have associations with Pakistani cities like Rawal
Pindi, where I was born; Lahore, where I went to University for 4 years; and
Karachi, where I got married to a girl born and raised in Karachi. But I am not
supporting any of those teams.
I am supporting Peshawar
just because I am a huge supporter of Shahid Afridi!
After watching the
Gladiators dominate the first few days of the league, I have started supporting
them too, just because of the sort of cricket they are playing.
So out of the 5 teams
playing in the PSL, my support is with the two Pakistani cities that I have
never been to!
Isn’t it easier to support a
team that contains your favorite players? A KP fan should be supporting Quetta,
while a Gayle fan should be supporting Lahore. Should it not work that way?
I never get why such leagues
play with the fans minds by naming teams after cities when the players in those
teams don’t represent those cities. Know what I mean?
It happens in the IPL as
well! It happens in the football leagues around the world too!
So what is this fascination
with city based team names? Why can’t the teams be named more imaginatively.
The Gladiators or The Kings should suffice; why associate those with Quetta or
Karachi?
It would make sense if the
teams represented the cities in some way, like they do in the domestic T20
competitions but rarely in the T20 leagues around the world.
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