Pakistani and Cricket culture

How Pakistan become part of the cricket world

The first time when Pakistan became part of the cricket industry was back in 1952. The historic day was marked on July 28 1952 when Pakistan joined ICC and played first test cricket in Delhi, India in October 1952. Pakistan has set many records in the history of the cricket world. Abdul Hafeez kardar was the first captain of the Pakistan cricket team who leads the team in first test cricket. Pakistan cricket team has put in lots of hard work to make themselves count among the best cricket teams in the world. Pakistan has discovered many legends in the cricket world that include many big names such as Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, and the list goes on.

Pakistan’s cricket legends were able to secure their position in the ICC hall of fame along with many top-class cricketers from all around the world. In ICC ranking Pakistan cricket team is on 6th number in the top ten cricket teams in the world.

Pakistan’s first win of world cup

Pakistan wins the first ICC world cup in 1992 in England. The team was facing difficulties from the start of the tournament but this unpredictable team tried to make it to the finals. After winning 5 matches in a row they were able to play finals. New Zealand faced the only defeat in the round-robin by the Pakistan cricket team that leads them into the finals to play against England. The finale was against the most powerful and founder of this game England. Pakistan cricket team was nervous but still, they gave their best to win the World cup for the first time. Imran Khan was leading the Pakistan cricket team as a captain at that time and did a partnership half-century with Javed Miandad. After Imran Javed Miandad and Waseem Akram helped team in the finale to make it possible for Pakistan to win World cup in the ground of Melbourne Cricket Ground. Akram was the man of the match in 1992 world cup finale.

On this historical win, Pakistan had given the target of 250 runs. The nation was overjoyed and celebrated this incredible win.

The downfall of cricket era of Pakistan

Pakistan cricket team started to face downfall in the leadership of Misbah ul Haq. It has just started when the Pakistan cricket team started losing their test matches back to back and the win rate was too low. The other reason was the internal politics and issues in Pakistan Cricket Board.

One of the major issues of Pakistan’s cricket downfall was terrorism. When the Sri Lankan team was in Pakistan to play the Twenty20 series and was targeted by terrorists in Lahore. After that incident, Pakistan was not able to host any international cricket series in Pakistan. For more than a decade all the series that started held in UAE was supposed to be in Pakistan.

International series again started in Pakistan

After a long pause, a series of ODI matches were held in Pakistan. Zimbabwe was the first international team who visited Pakistan. Sri Lanka also visited Pakistan in 2017.

PCB introduced Pakistan Super League

Pakistan started PSL in September 2016. PSL was one of the reasons to bring back international cricket in Pakistan. In the start, there were 5 teams of different cities of Pakistan that includesIslamabad United

• Quetta Gladiators
• Lahore Qalandars
• Peshawar Zalmi
• Karachi Kings

Later on in 2018 one more team Multan Sultans was also included in PSL 2018. All franchises included many international players in their team. The first series was held in UAE and the final was played between Quetta Gladiators and Islamabad United. The first-ever PSL winner was Islamabad United. The finale of 2nd season of PSL was held in Qaddafi Stadium in 2017. Peshawar Zalmi was the winner of that season.

Later on, in 2020, all matches of PSL 2020 were played in Pakistan but due to the Covid-19 situation, the match was called off due to the increasing number of Covid cases in players. The match was then started again in November 2020.  Islamabad United is the most winning team of PSL with two seasons winning trophy.

Pakistan wins the T20 world cup

Pakistan became the ICC T20 world cup champion in 2009. Younis Khan was the captain of Pakistani team who led the team in this incredible win. So the world cup final was held in England. Pakistan squad was based on young players as well as the senior player Pakistan won the toss that was the first win at that time to decide their faith and they decided to bowl first Pakistan bowling squad include 3 experienced seamer and with 1 emerging player who was able to talk to the bowl and can swing both ways he was having a great world cup at that time and a speed start the Rawalpindi express (Shoaib Akhtar) but he all-rounder Abdul Razzaq got 3 wickets for  Pakistan.

Pakistan bowled well Pakistan and had to chase 139 runs against the most favorite team of that world cup. The ball was turning around slow deliveries bouncers and the Yorkers of Liast Malinga Pakistan did not lose a wicket in the powerplay but Murli gave the breakthrough to Srilanka but fate was already decided at the time Lala came to play Afridi took the responsibility and took Pakistan to the end everyone was expecting for an aggressive hit from Afridi bit it was just a single and raised his both arms and gave the world cup title to Pakistan.

Pakistan cricket team defeated Sri Lanka with 8 wickets at Lord’s in London in July 2009.

Women cricket team took place in Pakistan

The women Cricket team was introduced in 1997. After many facing many hurdles and resistance, they started their debut match with New Zealand. Shaiza Khan was the first captain of the Pakistan women’s cricket team. Their first win was the first ODI match against Netherland. Pakistan has produced many stars in the women’s cricket team as well Sana mir is one of the famous cricketers on the women’s cricket team. She has played as a successful captain of the Pakistan women’s cricket team.