Pakistan win the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup !!!

Perhaps Rishad Mehmood, the sports editor of the Dawn Newspaper in Pakistan said it best, “Pakistan's victory in the Twenty20 cricket tournament has lifted the spirits of a beleaguered nation”.

If you went on Facebook last night, surely you saw the status of your Pakistani friends, male or females, mentioning something about “boom boom Afridi” and a world cup win. Well, cricket is the national sport of Pakistan, and they have had many successes in the past, but this one is that much more special...

March 25th 1992, Melbourne, Australia, what a great scene, Pakistan beat England by 22 runs to lift the World Cup, that day Legends retired the sport, and Legends were born. Imran Khan, the now leader of the Tehreek al Insaaf political party in Pakistan, lifted the World Cup trophy, along with Javed Miandad and Mushtaq Ahmad, the 3 would go down as pioneering Legends of the sports. Other Legends were born that day, who would go on to achieve great things in the sport of cricket, namely Inzamam-ul-Haq and Wasim Akram.

But, this twenty20 win is even more special than that, and there are many reasons for it, and not all are related to the sport of Cricket. Firstly, this team was a team full of mainly youngsters, as young as 17 years old with minimal experience. The experienced players amongst them, although very good players were either inconsistent or still making there mark on the sport.

But, this win is so special for reason other than Cricket, the nation of Pakistan, and it's leaders have been in the news media infamously in the past two years. With a terrorist attack occurring on an almost regular basis, including a machine gun attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team, who were visiting Pakistan to play a few matches. The attacks have been large in scale, with Hotel bomb blasts targeting foreign visitors to the country, to the horrific and barbaric attack which assassinated Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, greatly influential political leader, and daughter of the Nation.

Pakistan has been called a failed state by Political analysts, which is run by a democratically elected, seemingly useless and powerless Political Party. This great nation, whose leaders were greatly influenced by the thoughts and teachings of philosopher Allama Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, known as the “Poet of the east”. This great nation built on principles of mutual love and harmony, is now the hotbed of terrorism. All optimism was lost, Pakistanis both living in Pakistan, or abroad, I.e. England, had no hopes of a return of sanity to the nation, and a state of anarchy seemed to be prevailing upon the shadow of a nation that once was.

Sunday 21st June 2009 signified something different, it brought about a calm, an air of optimism, as I watched Pakistan win the T20 world-cup, as I watched the news to see the people celebrating in the streets of Pakistan, as I logged onto Facebook to see the statuses of my Pakistani friends changed to something Cricket related, and as I went to Manchester, and saw all the Pakistanis with there flags and green shirts, with there drums and horns, shouting victory slogans and dancing around in glee. I stood around, with an almost blank stare, thinking “Is this the beginning of a new era”, the people of Pakistan, who feared leaving there houses, in fear of a militant attacks, will they now awaken from a slumber and sense of self defeatism, to take back the country which was build for them, will they take it back in the streets, in the courts, in the political scene and in the International arena's.

I for one truly hope this T20 win has a butterfly effect, which will encourage the people of Pakistan and give them hope and courage to fight against terrorism and extremism, and bring back the Peace.