I've been to a few Pakistan matches before, and although I'll never tire of them it was nice to see some of the other cricketing stars I wouldn't usually have the chance to. Lara and Tendulkar both put on good shows, while Dhoni made things exciting toward the end of the International XI's innings. I even got to see Waqar Younis bowl (albeit badly)! A score of 123 was set which was pretty exciting for ten overs.
It was then Pakistan's turn to bat. Most were surprised that Afridi wasn't opening, but I didn't mind; if he was going to do his thing I'd rather watch some of the other batsmen have a go first. And that was basically how it went - Pakistan didn't really accelerate till Afridi (41 off 21 balls) and Inzamam took to their respective creases. And even then the game was taken to the wire: twelve runs were required in the last over for Pakistan to win the match, but after five balls they had only(!) made ten. The sixth throw was a no-ball (perhaps unfortunately) and so secured the draw. That didn't matter though as Inzamam knocked the rethrow for a four. It was total drama, yaar.
The three Indian players drew in a lot of their fans: between us we made up most of the audience and our flags were the only ones being waved on the pitch. In essence, this was as close to an Indo-Pak affair as you could get without them actually playing each other. And the fact that this was a "trivial" charity match seemed to have taken some of the venom away too with each side indiscriminately cheering and jeering anyone and anything they could.
It was fun and stress-free and I can think of worse ways to spend a gloomy Monday evening. And there were fitties, like, everywhere too. Perfeck.
Media-wise, it was a pretty low key affair and I can't find many match reports online but The BBC and Cricinfo both have write ups of the match.
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