Ramadan in Karachi: The streets of Karachi come alive during the holy month of Ramadan, as the sound of taped-up tennis balls ricocheting off makeshift cricket bats fill the air. The young men of Karachi flock to basketball courts and parking lots, transforming them into urban cricket arenas. Floodlights are rigged up, illuminating the night and creating an atmosphere that rivals any professional cricket match.
Tournaments pop up in most neighborhoods throughout the month of Ramadan, with the matches ranging from pick-up games on improvised concrete pitches to professional competitions on dusty ovals. The tape-ball games are ubiquitous across Karachi’s streets throughout the year, but the night tournaments during Ramadan offer a unique opportunity for people to play during the cooler hours of the night.
“The kids and youths can’t afford kits and all the accessories for playing hard-ball cricket, but they can easily afford the tape ball,” said competition organizer Taqdeer Afridi.
The games are frenetic, with matches consisting of between four and six overs per innings. They are concluded before sehri, the meal consumed ahead of daytime fasting. Money is often involved, even though gambling is illegal in Pakistan, and big-hitting mercenaries are occasionally lured from surrounding neighborhoods to play under the lights that craftily tap into overhead power lines.
Tape-ball games are ubiquitous across Karachi’s streets throughout the year, but Ramadan sees night tournaments pop up in most neighbourhoods.
The uninitiated may struggle to unravel the mayhem of multiple overlapping matches in a cramped space, but for Karachi’s street cricketers, there is method in the madness.
The tennis ball is tightly bound with electrical tape, giving it extra weight so it swings much like a cricket ball, yet is less damaging if it hits a spectator, window — or even a passing rickshaw. Matches played in the poorest neighborhoods can draw hundreds of spectators, with many onlookers admitting that watching cricket all night helps with the day’s fast.
After Partition in 1947, cricket was considered the domain of the upper class, played at Karachi’s posh clubs and elite schools. But as the population boomed through the 1960s, cricket adapted to the sprawling metropolis and tennis balls emerged as a substitute for the hard ball. The cheaper alternative — which also removes the need for costly equipment like batting pads — took on several experimental forms in the following decades, and is credited with bringing the sport to the everyday Pakistani.
There is no consensus on when the first tape ball delivery was bowled or by whom, but legends abound — and the one thing historians and fans agree on is that it originated in Karachi.
From legendary all-rounder Wasim Akram to modern-day pace star Shaheen Shah Afridi, many of Pakistan’s top players credit street cricket as a positive influence on their techniques. “In cricket, there is a saying: ‘watch the ball’ — it doesn’t matter if it is a tennis ball or a taped ball or a hard ball,” Pakistan national youth coach Mohammad Masroor told AFP. “If a batsman can hit any ball, he can play cricket.”
Watching young cricketers at a street pitch wedged between an elevated expressway and an apartment block in central Karachi, Masroor said rules adapted to the urban landscape hone a batsman’s skills. A hit back over the bowler’s head and beyond the residential area on the full is six runs, but only one run if the ball rebounds off the apartment building. Players must also beware of the “grumpy uncle or aunty” who is unwilling to return a ball hit into their home. A shot like that can cost a batsman more than just his wicket: they need to go buy a new ball, too.
Despite the challenges, the players of Karachi’s street cricket are determined to keep playing. “Nothing stops them,” said Masroor, grinning.
