Mangoes, music and mesmerising fast bowlers are three things Pakistan is fondly remembered for around the world. We enjoy the former two but will not pretend to have any insight on what makes Pakistani fruit so deliciously sweet and music so trance inducing. The third one, the express pacers, we know a thing or 10 about. Here is our list of top 10 fast bowlers who played international cricket for Pakistan. Silky smooth run-up, easy-on-the-eyes action, fast bowler’s aggression, decent pace,

It’s that time of the year when sheaths come off of sharpened knives, axes are wielded and heads are rolled. Because Pakistan did not win the World Cup, their World Cup campaign is deemed a failure. The thinking heads would argue that Sarfaraz Ahmed’s men were in no way better than at least three of the four teams that finished above them, thus they achieved what they were capable of and almost achieved even more. But that’s logic, which has no place in post-World Cup Pakistani hysteria. To ge

Another match, and another lop-sided loss later, we have more than one way to skin this cat. We can do the obvious, which is to point out the plethora of blunders to bash the team, its captain and demand wholesale changes. Or we can take the less popular, riskier and twice failed route of sticking with the Greenshirts, and build the narrative that the twin defeats so far would mean nothing if they win the final. Depending on the route taken, we'd be assuming that either this team are flat-track

Dawn.com explains how the demarcation of constituencies is done. The word delimitation — or its Urdu counterpart, halqa-bandi — has been thrown around frequently in the months leading up to the election. It started popping up sometime after the provisional results of the last census were released, and had become a regular fixture of electoral parlance by the time the outgoing setup made way for the caretakers. So what does delimitation — an oft-heard but rarely understood electoral term — act

The headline of this piece should be the last time Inzamam-ul-Haq is referenced as Imam-ul-Haq's uncle — or Imam as Inzamam's nephew. The younger Haq, from what we've seen in his young career, is a player in his own right. And the older Haq, judging from the chock-full talent pool of Pakistan cricket right now, is doing something right as the chief selector. It may pain us to admit, but the kinship these two have is totally trivial. A chacha-bhateja duo they may be, but for our purposes, one i

Business gurus will tell you that the basic prerequisite for any business, any new venture is the buyer. Product is secondary, and can be conjured in more ways than one as long as the buyers and their demand exist. It is this guarantee of ready-made demand that makes sports franchises the world over attach the names of countries with their leagues and cities with their franchises. A so and so premier league appeals to no one; but attach 'Indian' to the name, and more than two billion ears perk

The mood is festive but it's not a wedding reception. There's live music, but it's not a concert. There are prizes on offer, but it's not a game show. Karachi's YMCA Lawn is packed with a capacity crowd of 1,700 - all clad in their best dresses and all members of a specific Memon community - the Morbi Tankara community.Year after year, this particular Memon caste comes together to gossip, mingle and bond, before sharing a typically chaotic dinner. It's a grand old pre-partition tradition, believ

In the normal world, it's the star players who contribute the lion's share when a team wins something big, not a band of rookies and rejects who — until a short while ago — weren't even guaranteed a place in the side.But that's for the normal world, and nothing about this Pakistan cricket team is normal. Expect anything of this bunch but never expect them to be normal.Against India, in the final, and the trio of matches before that, Pakistan went from being shockingly below-par to incredibly ove

Pakistan is going slightly MMA mad As MMA continues to gain popularity across the globe, the sport’s trademark ‘madness’ spreads at an eye-raising rate in Pakistan too “Thora pagal hona parta hai (you need to be a little mad),” says martial artist Shahid Javaid aka Shahid Bhai, a crooked smile curling upon his face as he displays the scars he has accumulated over the years during his mixed martial arts (MMA) fights and training. His smile is almost unsettlingly proud, hammering home the ‘madnes

In a dingy hotel in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Town, Taj Muhammad busies himself with preparing tea for the many customers that sit on the white plastic seats and wooden charpoys scattered across the Taj Hotel.He doesn’t stand out, nor does he seem out of place behind the counter; working diligently, concentrating on the task at hand, talking softly to those who come within earshot.But behind those clever eyes, Taj holds a secret — he is a national treasure. Not too long ago, in the neighbourhood’s P

The term greatest-ever and the greatest of all time are thrown around regularly by the media to honour supremely successful athletes, but very rarely is the title as truly deserved or as unanimously bestowed as in the case of late American boxer Muhammad Ali.When the former heavyweight passed away yesterday in Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 74 due to complications arising from a respiratory illness, him being the greatest sportsman of all-time wasn’t a debate. That argument had been settled d

A typical Pakistani's version of history is full of national triumphs and religious bigotry. The glory is all ours, the shame is all theirs. We did no wrong while our enemies did no right.These skewed versions of history are widely prevalent in our society despite a lack of any substantial evidence. To solve this puzzle, a panel discussion was held on day one of the School of Tomorrow conference.The three panelists - Abdul Hameed Nayyer, Akeel Bilgrami and Aamer Khan - all pinpointed classrooms