Last week, I had a chance to fulfill one of my lesser fantasies as a Pakistan cricket fan – I was invited to attend the launch of Pakistan’s official World Cup 2015 jersey.
Hosted by #PepsiCricket and organised by #JBnJaws, it was all in all an interesting and slightly surreal experience.
Much of the suspense regarding the main event – the unveiling of the kit – had been deflated a day earlier, after news channels seemed to have burst into the factory making the uniform, and released pictures on-air.
Nevertheless, the event itself was still abuzz with excitement when we walked into the venue.
There was a large phalanx of journalists and busy looking, young men in suits, surrounded by fake trees festooned in Pepsi cans and a DJ who alternated between remixes of previous World Cup anthems, as well as oddly appropriate tracks like Chris Issak’s Wicked Games. Given the relationship between the team and its fans, it was the most apt choice the DJ made all night.
Influenced perhaps by the (still unbelievable) Lahori culture of weddings starting and ending on time, things got underway relatively punctually as the cricketers began filtering in at the appointed time. The stage with its large screens and Bond-entry style layout was also excellent, and the general décor and ambience suited the occasion too.
However, it seemed that the emcee of the night, popular musician and actor Ahmed Ali Butt, hadn’t spent enough time preparing for his role.
Butt sahib seemed to have lost his renowned extempore skills, having equipped himself with just one joke – he asked just about every player if female fans sent them WhatsApp messages. The quip was repeated endlessly, and the only reason the audience didn’t tear their hair out was that most of the players had surprisingly funny responses.
Irfan joked about his height, while Junaid made fun of Butt’s belly. Even the deadpan captain Misbah had a few witty quips, gently reminding us that the sound of his voice and the surety of his front-foot defense are not the only facets to judge him by.
More reprehensibly, many of these ‘jokes’ soon turned into homophobic and racist comments about Pakthuns. They were the sort of jokes that people don’t even forward on SMS anymore. Yet, the hosts made them repeatedly. Each comment was more reprehensible than the last, and the whole affair was made far, far worse by the fact that a large proportion of the team – seated just a few feet away – happen to be from the Pakhtun community.
It was one thing not to have any good jokes, but quite another to try and make them up by being ridiculously offensive.
And oh – one of the co-hosts made a quip about fast bowlers ‘killing’ a batsman in Australia. In the aftermath of Phillip Hughes’s death, I wasn’t even sure how to respond.
Disappointingly, the various stars assembled for the event – Fawad Khan, Quratulain Balouch, Junaid Younus, Amanat Ali Khan, Nabeel Shaukat, Anoushey Khan and others – failed to add the requisite razzmatazz. It was, perhaps, indicative of the state of Pakistan’s music industry, where the mainstream has shrunken rapidly and no longer creates stars with the same national appeal as the cricketers.
It wasn’t too long ago that the stars on Pepsi’s cricket and music rosters were on roughly equal footing, but despite the cricket team having lost many of its icons, its allure outstripped those of the entertainers.
Having Ali Azmat to round off the evening with a performance was perhaps most poignant – the last time he released a popular World Cup song, even the immortal Shahid Afridi hadn’t made his debut yet.
But the immortal Afridi was still able to steal the show. Afridi the cricketer is infuriatingly inconsistent, but Afridi the Grand Statesman didn’t miss a single beat, pulling off a consummate social performance. When asked if he would use his good looks to launch a film career, Afridi dead-batted with, “I just want to be a good Muslim.”
But Boom Boom showed off his star power by pulling off the event’s most redemptive moment, the team selfie.
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Afridi takes the selfie for Team Green. —Image source: Twitter |
It happened just as the team was being ushered off stage to put on their kits, which turned out to be the same watermelon-inspired design that had underwhelmed social media a day earlier.
Still, it didn’t seem so bad in the moment.
For one, the players marching out amidst strains of The Final Countdown and taking positions was genuinely exciting.
Afridi was then handed a phone, and no sooner had he raised it, the two Lords of House Selfie – Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal – swarmed around him by instinct. The rest of the team soon followed, and the resulting picture made everything from the kits to the team’s camaraderie look far better than they might be in reality.
Afridi wasn’t the only star though – Yasir Shah looks set to become a legend as he unveiled his infectious giggle and wonderful disposition. Almost all the bowlers had some witty responses, which bodes well for their sledging potential.
Mohammad Hafeez looked good but didn’t do anything memorable, which was usual for him, though his wife deflected the hosts’ leading questions with great panache.
Ahmed Shehzad preened around as a peacock, while Younis Khan showed once again why he is the father this nation needs.
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Ahmed Shehzad and Misbahul Haq are interviewed at the event. —Publicity photo |
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Younis Khan being interviewed during the ceremony. Ahmad Butt stands to the left. —Publicity photo |
As a fan, I was thoroughly enthralled being around the stars – so much so that I even decided to skip the utter chaos which was the free dinner and left early. But I do have some critical advice for whichever corporate sponsor holds such an event again.
For starters, they have to learn to be more subtle. Nowhere else are national stars asked to come on stage to talk at length about what they feel about a bottle of soft drink, and I doubt many countries would have their team captain give the official shirt to a corporate suit to wear, rather than the other way round.
Similarly, the hosts have to take an interest in the event beyond the basic banter they do with their own friends; perhaps their act could be planned just as well as the stage and lighting.
But most importantly – and this would require coordination across several organisations – it should be a must to ensure that the next time the kit is revealed, it hasn’t already been leaked to the world.