Cricket is not your game,

neither is it mine.

It is at best one way

of whiling away the time.

What mattered in this match

was not each run, each four,

each wicket, each catch

but it being played in Lahore.

The city where bombs lit

the sky was bright again,

this time by generators,

fireworks, a public's disdain

for terrorists. The game was won

not so much by the players

(including the few foreigners)

as by the brave spectators. 

Which only goes to show,

that patronage matters.

It's not what but who you know.

That can literary festivals break,

a vote-pulling spectacle make.

5.3.17