2009 World Twenty20: When Pakistan Emerged from Darkness
June 21, 2009. If ever Pakistan's survival depended on a cricket match, this was the day. Ostracised by the cricketing world after the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore just months earlier, Pakistan were fighting a battle on many fronts when they arrived in England for the 2009 World Twenty20.
The players were still reeling in the aftermath of the Lahore tragedy. What was to become of Pakistan cricket? Will an international team tour the country ever again? Will Pakistan be able to pull itself out of the darkness of March 3? Will the Sri Lankans be able to forgive?
For a cricket team, these were perhaps too many extras to deal with as the tournament kicked off on June 2.
Nineteen days later it was these very two teams, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who strode out to the center for their respective national anthems in the final at Lord's. Neither deserved to lose.
But as maverick star Shahid Afridi struck his Vitruvian Man pose at the end of a tense Sunday evening, cricket had served a greater purpose. Pakistan lifted the trophy but Sri Lanka had not lost. It was cricket's defining moment - it was more than just a game.
The Bible of Cricket, Wisden, put it aptly:
Now came a high every bit as uplifting as winning the 1992 World Cup - perhaps more so given the world's unwillingness to travel to Pakistan in the wake of the Lahore terrorist atrocity in March, an attack which injured seven Sri Lankan cricketers. The victorious captain Younis Khan made an impassioned plea for international cricket to return to Pakistan, as well as announcing his immediate retirement from Twenty20 internationals.
