What will go through Umar Akmal’s mind when he steps out at Gaddafi Stadium against Zimbabwe on Friday? Or Ahmed Shahzad?
Together, two of Pakistan’s brightest but slightly derailed prospects have yet to play a single international game in Pakistan in front of a home crowd.
Both debuted for Pakistan in 2009, soon after the terror attacks on the Sri Lankan team close to Gaddafi Stadium that took international cricket out of the country.
What will they make of the din that will first greet them as they step out, then burst through to some inner core of theirs and then envelop them through the evening?
This is a home they have never been to, a homecoming for nomads.
It will be unnerving, for sure.
Elite athletes work counter-intuitively to the crowds that flock to see them. They are trained to block them out, to focus narrowly on what they are required to do on the field.
Occasionally they will break kayfabe. They will ride on the energy of the crowd. They will plead with the crowd to create energy for them to ride on.
Sometimes they will not be able to help but react to the negativity and abuse. Mostly though, they block it out.
RELATED:
Podcast: Talking central contracts for UAE players, the tour of UK and Ireland, and World T20 Qualifier
Mohammed Amir: Shamed Pakistan bowler back from the brink and ready to repair his reputation
Gallery: Lahore braces for return of international cricket to Pakistan — in pictures
On Friday, at Lahore, it will be impossible for Pakistan’s players to do so. When Pakistan hosted India in an ODI in 2004, on their first full tour in 15 years, the full house meant Karachi’s National Stadium was physically vibrating all day.
It was as if you were wearing one of those fat-burning belts that help cut flab around the waist, only that it was internally worn and kept going all day.
The energy was almost solely responsible for conjuring a truly improbable game for its time, as Pakistan ended one hit away from chasing down 350.
Zimbabwe is not India and carries none of the baggage of that rivalry, but the occasion is unlikely to be much different.
Hardened veterans such as Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Hafeez, who have played in Pakistan before, will feel it.
If he was playing, even the unflappable Misbah-ul-Haq might be flapped.
For Akmal and Shahzad, who knows, it may become a career-defining moment. These are the comforts they have missed without ever having experienced them in the first place.
This game, in the city they grew up in, the city they became cricketers in, in the arena they must have dreamt about, in front of their own families and friends, their comfort zone.
It is an occasion to cleanse cluttered minds. This, the pair may finally understand, is what they were born to do.
For so long we have wondered of the impact of no international cricket in Pakistan. We still do not really know. Of course there has been a financial impact and some unspecified but deleterious effect on domestic cricket and the infrastructure.
As an administrative body, the development of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and its officials has been stunted.
Upon their players, however, has been the most intriguing toll. They have spoken often of it as an existential wrench, travelling all year round but never back to home; of being at home but not, in front of stadiums that are not as full as they should be.
It has been difficult to grasp a tangible sense of this, to put a number to it. How different would they be as players had they been playing at home all this time?
Pakistan’s results, in Tests at least, suggest the exile has not been so harsh. They remain undefeated in a series in the UAE; the lack of spectator attendances in the Emirates have long been a pattern for Tests in Pakistan.
Their limited-overs game, where crowds have an impact, have been dire.
Still Zimbabwe’s arrival is a turning point, if not one of instant impact.
The first step was always to find a full member team willing to tour. The second, more crucial, is to ensure the tour goes off safely.
Only then will belief be instilled in other sides that Pakistan can be toured and it will be a long, slow and gradual process before normality resumes. For now, though, a moment that seemed inconceivably for years, is suddenly right here.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @NatSportUAE
