Pakistan Super League: Clamour before the storm at Sharjah Cricket Stadium

Paul Radley reports from inside and outside the Sharjah Cricket Stadium where the Pakistan Super League had to contend with "over-zealous" fans and a weather-interrupted match.

Pakistan fans waiting outside to enter the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Friday evening. Satish Kumar / The National

SHARJAH // It is a push to suggest those cricket fanatics who headed to Sharjah Cricket Stadium for Friday’s HBL Pakistan Super League double-header would have given the shirts off their backs for a ticket.

Given the scrum to get in, though, a great many supporters will have gone home without at least one of their shoes.

Attendances had been measly so far in this competition, but a Friday afternoon start in the centrally-located Sharjah stadium is usually a good remedy for any supporter ambivalence.

With the Peshawar Zalmi of Shahid Afridi playing a top-of-the-table fixture against Quetta Gladiators, a fevered anticipation had suddenly gripped the PSL.

Even the foreboding weather — a sandstorm combined with intermittent drizzle — failed to dampen the fervour.

Tickets were like gold dust. On the PSL website, the comments section below the link to tickets was littered with people requesting spares, each leaving their personal telephone number, such was their desperation.

Hours before the start, queues snaked around the ground. It had barely thinned by the time Quetta’s spinner Zulfiqar Babar sent down the first ball of the match to Tamim Iqbal, Peshawar’s Bangladeshi opener.

Friday + Sharjah + PSL = cricket, lovely cricket #chocabloc pic.twitter.com/VW104hM2Cm

Once play had started, the thousands who were still queuing outside surged forward with such force that a large metal signpost, giving directions to a nearby graveyard, was flattened.

Three bicycles parked next to the sign were mangled beyond repair by the weight of bodies and trampling feet.

And, when the mass of humanity had finally cleared, near the end of the Peshawar innings, hundreds of shoes, including smart brogues, trainers and sandals, littered the pathway. Presumably, the footwear had been kicked off amid the scrummage, and abandoning them had been wiser than fighting against the tide to retrieve them.

After half an hour in the queue, Sajjid, a Zalmi supporter from Ajman, made it through the turnstiles by 10 minutes after the 3.30pm start time.

He had paid Dh80 per ticket for himself and his wife, Nosheen. They had also brought their daughter Duaa, 3, and son Mohammed, 1, to watch the game.

Their big day out had fallen flat, though. First because the crowd around them had become uncomfortably over-zealous. Then, because of the rain that caused the match to be abandoned with just 16 overs of the Zalmi innings played.

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They left as soon as time was called on the first match, not even waiting around for the Karachi Kings-Islamabad United match in the evening.

“We are Pathans, so we wanted to come and see Peshawar,” Sajjid said. “When we queued, people showed no discipline. There was no respect for females or children.

“Then when it started to rain and the game was called off, I felt so bad. This was a big day for my family. We were excited about coming here.”

Mohammed Zaman, the Pakistan cricket superfan otherwise known as “Chacha T20”, has seen more matches in Sharjah than he can count. This was the first time he could remember a washout.

Zaman lived alternately between Dubai and Fujairah for 23 years before giving up his job as a sweet-maker in 2011 to travel the world as a full-time supporter of the Pakistan team.

He said the fact the rain had brought about the abandonment of the game made him “want to cry”.

“This is the first time it has rained,” Zaman said. “This was the best crowd of the PSL. Too many people came. The stadium was not big enough for all the people that wanted tickets for this game.

“Everyone was so excited, with this being the off day, but there was bad news: the rain came. It made me want to cry for the supporters.”

Tamim, playing his first match in the competition, was disappointed his unbeaten 62 went to waste, but more so because the raucous crowd were denied a finish.

“It was a difficult wicket to bat on, but I think we had enough, if we had had a full game,” Tamim said, after his side had made 117 for three in 16 overs. “I think it would have been a really interesting game, but unfortunately because of the rain, it didn’t happen.

“There are a lot of Peshawar — and Bangladeshi — people in Dubai and Sharjah, so we normally get good support and we are thankful for that.”

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