“Don’t call it a comeback… “ said the Cool J Afridi. “I’ve been here for years.” :-)

Indeed. Afridi has been around for AGES; it really does feel like 20 years as Sir Beefy mentioned! And knowing how NADRA operates back home, he probably is in his early forties too!

Well done Pakistan today and well done Afridi for another great performance (and about time!) in winning the T20 World Cup today.

Afridi

Well done also to Younis Khan for having the guts to slap it in short and really surprise the truly outstanding Dilshan and other Sri Lankan batsmen. Well done to everyone’s favourite cricketeer Sangakkara for a wonderful effort to give his boys a fighting total – and you know that every Pak fan had butterflies in their stomachs all the way during the run chase until Afridi battered Udana for six. Truth be told, I thought Sri Lanka had taken the game once Mathews started slogging Umar Gul and the boys around at the end and getting a good total.

But I knew Pakistan had won the game the second Shahzaib got out. He had a nightmare and anyone replacing him was going to be good news and thus with another superb innings by the unsung hero of the team Shoaib Malik, we got what we needed to see us through. Alhamdulillah.

It’s sad news to hear of Younis’s sudden retirement from T20 because I think he’s a credit to the game. He’s excellent at pacing the batting, a safe pair of hands, and brave enough to make some crazy decisions despite the possible risks and criticisms. Personally, I think Pakistan should only be captained by Khans. All formats. For ever. But I would say that, innit? ;-)

All that was left was the fun and smiles at the end – countless thanks to “the Allah” naturally – and then the good old Pak speeches etc. What about the fiqh from Fawad Alam (should that be ‘Aalim?) at the end who showed the rest of his team that facing the Qiblah is not a condition for a sajdat’l-shukr? Nice one. And was there anything more hilarious than Kamran Akmal’s face when he realised that he had to rub shoulders with the gori from the England Women’s Team at the photo call?? Absolute classic!

In conclusion – considering I see myself as a purist – the T20 format has produced another great spectacle and a wonderful tournament. From the bitterness of one of my favourite cricketeers Vettori to the magic of Gayle’s innings against Lee; there was Malinga’s slow ball full toss which is easily the most scariest ball of the tournament, forget Gul’s slow bouncer or Mendis’s magic. And what about Mathews’s quite astonishing fielding? Yet again the Sri Lankans truly amazed us this year.

The Dilshan scoop isn’t the joke it looks either. To get the scoop might be easy enough in principle, but to do it to a quick bowler off a length ball, and most importantly exactly time the drop of the head at the very last second is just sheer genuius and he well deserved Player of the Tournament.

And then of course, there was that catch. I think the word “game-changer” was probably created for that Afridi moment.

All in all, an excellent boost for the sad and suffering people of Pakistan who will gratefully accept any kind of good news to provide even a moment’s escape from their constant misery at the hands of a secular government and/or rabid extremists. No doubt though that cricket slapped the terrorists in the face today, and spat on their attempt to destroy the one ray of light that most average Pakistanis look to in the dunya those four months ago in Lahore.

Alhamdulillah, and Pakistan – Zindabad.