Until the last ball was played no one could say who would walk away from the jam-packed Sher-e-Bangla Stadium with the coveted Asia Cup. No doubt, the dice was loaded against Pakistan as the day-night match was played out. But given the golden uncertainties of the cricket, the chances were evenly balanced as millions across the world watched finger-crossed from the edges of their seats. While Bangladesh played cricket, the victory came to Pakistan.
The tigers had come from behind, giving the shivers to the stalwarts of the cricket world. After squarely beating Sri Lanka and humiliating the reigning Asia Cup champion India, the Bangladesh eleven clinched the cup from Pakistan in a photo-finish final. Of course Shahid Afridi earned some cheers for his sparkling 22-ball 32 including a rare six, Sarfraz Ahmad stood his ground and Aizaz Cheema saved the day, it was the host team that showed us what is the cricket. But it was the host team that they played the lead role in this melodrama of hope and despair. They had come all the way and were face-to-face with victory, it cheated them and they profusely wept - as their top leadership watched in awe and disbelief. However the Tigers are now in the field, posing a challenge to the monopoly of the cricket status quo. That the last ball would be the game-changer is a once in a blue moon happening, for us Pakistanis the first after 'Miandad's chakka' at Sharjah years ago.
Naturally, the victory from the cliff-hanger is being celebrated throughout the country; indeed a thin ray of hope in these times of doom and gloom. Seen against the backdrop that the match was hosted by Bangladesh and was played on the eve of March 23, the day we celebrate as Pakistan Day, this cricket story told in the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium walks us down memory lane. In Lahore, in 1940 the Sher-i-Bengal had moved the Lahore Resolution that now forms the foundation of our independence existence. Pakistan Day is celebrated by us with due fervour, but no more as before. The Pakistan Day Parade, jointly presided over by top civil and military leaderships, is now history. While the military parade was cancelled under the threat of terrorist attack, the political leadership is beset with more pressing challenges. President Asif Ali Zardari who should have been presiding over the parade is in Karachi trying to figure out how to rescue the nation's industrial-financial hub from the clutches of extortionists, target-killers, land-grabbers and the ilk. If there is a message from the Dhaka it is that instead of making to the Paltan Maidan we should go to the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, for the challenge to our national existence is no less grim and grave as it was in 1971. Let us read the fine print of the Lahore Resolution; it talks of 'Independent States' in which the constituent units shall be "autonomous and sovereign".
Of course since that day our national history has gone through tremendous evolution and that water is under the bridge now. Today we are a federation comprising provinces, which are likely to have more autonomy thanks to the 18th Constitutional Amendment. But that's not enough; we have to go beyond that, essentially by accepting the comprising units' inalienable right to equal opportunity in all walks of our national life. We lost East Pakistan because the equality that should have been the key to the balance of power between the two Wings was not given, and intentionally. That blunder should not be repeated whatever it takes. Indeed the Asia Cup final at Dhaka has a lesson we need to learn.