Stunned, I sat in my classroom as my hands stopped writing the test after overhearing the sports teacher giving the most devastating news to the invigilator. It was the worst news there could ever be for a 16-year-old cricket fan: “There has been an attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore.”

I had all kinds of thoughts in my head. Attack? Attack on a visiting cricket team? How? What kind of attack?

Khurram Manzoor was to score a century that day, Pakistan were to respond fittingly to Sri Lanka’s first-innings 606 in the second Test. Mohammad Talha had to make a mark on his Test debut.

But attack? Curiosity and dread took over.

Upon reaching home from school that afternoon, I was welcomed by CCTV footage on news channels of the Sri Lankan team bus being ambushed by armed men on Lahore’s Liberty Roundabout. Players had been shot, umpires had endured bullets, policemen and drivers killed.

As Pakistan prepares to host the ICC Champions Trophy from February 19 — its first multi-nation cricket tournament in 17 years — a young cricket journalist recalls the arduous climb back as an international venue for Pakistan cricket

This was more significant than Khurram Manzoor and Mohammad Talha’s potential exploits, it dawned upon me. 

Sri Lanka had agreed to tour Pakistan after India’s refusal to tour the country for a full-fledged tour — three Tests, five One-day Internationals and a one-off T20 — following the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Having started following the sport religiously a couple of years earlier, the India tour was all I was looking forward to. I was looking forward to the Test in Karachi and the T20 here. It couldn’t be. 

Sri Lanka came here to prove Pakistan was a safe venue, as a response to India that Pakistan could never be isolated by the cricket community. Pakistan were to host the Champions Trophy later that year, and we were to co-host the World Cup two years later. Did the attack mean we would lose all of that?

Despite holding on to unrealistic optimism for the next few days, all that was feared became a reality; the Champions Trophy was moved to South Africa and the World Cup matches moved out and divided between co-hosts India and Sri Lanka.  

It was just too much to take. The dreams of millions or more cricket lovers like me were crushed. The realisation that the stadiums would stay empty for years to come brought upon an air of mourning.

Those wounds were partially healed when Pakistan won the World T20 months later, before establishing their “home” in the United Arab Emirates. But there was still work to do; international cricket had to be brought back to Pakistan.

The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) first attempt to do so was inviting Bangladesh to play a few matches in the country. Its counterpart board agreed to one One-day International and T20 each in 2012. But the tour was eventually called off following a Bangladesh high court order that cited security concerns.

The decisions hurt the PCB and the Pakistan fans “It is extremely disturbing to note for the PCB and Pakistan cricket fans and world cricketing nations that such an adverse order has been passed to block a bilateral cricket series,” the PCB had said then.

What unfolded made the Pakistan cricket authorities realise that they needed to look towards even weaker cricketing nations to create a chance of international games resuming in the country.

After three years of silent, empty grounds, it was Zimbabwe that agreed to become the first full international team to tour Pakistan in 2015. The PCB’s chairman at that time, the late Shaharyar Khan, had deemed the tour would “open doors of international cricket in Pakistan.”

And it did.

Two years later, in 2017, the PCB arranged, with the help of the ICC, a World XI visit to Pakistan for three T20Is, which all but restored the country’s status as a safe place for international cricket and sports overall. The West Indies visited in 2018 and, a year later, Pakistan were hosting their first Test match after the ill-fated Sri Lankan team bus attack. Coincidentally, it was against Sri Lanka again.

Meanwhile, the PCB had also arranged the 2017 and 2018 finals of the Pakistan Super League, involving foreign stars, in Pakistan, while the fifth edition of the league was held entirely in Pakistan, though divided into two parts because of Covid, with playoffs held later in the year.

A year after the Covid outbreak, in September 2021, the ICC announced Pakistan as hosts of the 2025 Champions Trophy, while England, Australia and New Zealand visited the following year.

In 2009, it was impossible to contemplate Pakistan hosting an ICC event 16 years later, but the full cycle of Pakistan’s return as a full-fledged cricketing venue will finally be completed when the hosts take on New Zealand in the opener in Karachi’s National Stadium on February 19.

While the Pakistan cricket team’s unpredictability has stayed constant, the narrative, as compared to 16 years ago, has totally transformed. It is not anymore about filling venues with spectators, it is about upgrading them for more, bigger cricket instead.

And it doesn’t get bigger than hosting the top seven teams in the world — barring India due to political tensions — across three venues. 

To 22-year-old fan Ali Jawwad from Karachi, the prospect of having the Champions Trophy at home means a lot. “Honestly, I’m thrilled that we are hosting such a huge event, which is really exciting for us as fans to go and witness some of the best players of this sport on our own patch,” he told me, reminding me of my own feelings all those years ago, in 2009.

Ali Jawwad also complained about administrative and infrastructural obstacles that discourage fans from enjoying matches.

But that’s a conversation that wouldn’t even have been valid a decade or so ago, suggesting that Pakistan cricket, if anything, is aiming for growth, and not simply survival.g

 The writer is member of staff. X: @shabbar_mir

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 16th, 2025