I am a huge cricket fan but an ever bigger fan of skiving off work. I was flying to Singapore on the night of the Pakistan-New Zealand semi final and so was only able to watch Pakistan’s lacklustre batting performance at home and parts of the New Zealand innings at the airport.

I have little to say about the match which seemed a bit anti-climactic after the win over India, another sign that victory over the ‘enemy’ is more important than a silly old tournament. I do have some thoughts, though, on what it was like watching cricket at the airport.

It is become something of a truism to say that cricket unites all Pakistan, crossing ethnic and economic lines. This is simply untrue, as those familiar with the Lahore-Karachi rivalry would know. I spent about 20 minutes watching the match at the Business Class Lounge (Before I am accused of being a rich journalist in the pocket of the ISI, let me add that my travelling companion had bought my business-class ticket). Out of the 20 or so people in the lounge, only about 10 were watching the match, and that too in silence. Most of the people there were busy working on their laptops, fiddling with their Blackberry’s and talking on the phone.

The atmosphere was far different in the general lounge. Waiting passengers were cheering every dot ball, the doors of the smokers’ lounge were thrown open so that tobacco fiends could get their fix of cricket as well. When the insipid Rana Naveed gave way to Shahid Afridi (possibly the only unifying force in all Pakistan), cheers erupted throughout the place.

New Zealand were about 70-2 when our flight was announced and no one was willing to board the aircraft. The bemused airport crew made about four announcements before a small queue formed at the gate. As luck would have it, Saeed Ajmal took our third wicket as I was ready to board. People who had already passed the gate came back to take a look, the line at the gate came to a standstill and it was a further five minutes before I got on the plane.

There is something to be said, too, about having no idea what happened in the match. For the next four-and-a-half hours, I and my companion debated all the possible outcomes. By the time we stopped for a plane change in Bangkok, we had convinced ourselves that Afridi and Ajmal would see us through. All the Pakistanis made a mad rush for the internet kiosk at Bangkok Airport and the first one to beat the scrum announced that we had lost by five wickets. Too bad, I suppose, but it did mean I would not waste a day of my vacation staring a dodgy live stream of the final on my laptop.

Having not seen most of the New Zealand innings, I cannot comment on why we lost. Thanks, then, to The News for explaining that we were beaten by India:

The general impression here is that since the ICC is being fully controlled by the Indian lobby, they were not happy with the Pakistan approach during their match against Australia.

Some of the Indians believe that Pakistan had deliberately kept India out of the semis race as they did not go all out to achieve win against Australia that could have enabled them make it to the semis. The Indians didn’t want Pakistan to win the Trophy and that whole biased umpiring decision were very much part of that campaign.

And since Pakistan are obviously way too great to ever lose a match, it is heartening to hear that politicians willinvestigate our batting techniques:

The head of Pakistan’s national parliamentary committee on sports has accused the team of deliberately losing to Australia in the ICC Champions Trophy in a group match and has called for changes in the national cricket board. He has also said he would summon the board chief and captain before parliament.

“There is evidence that the team lost the match to Australia on purpose,” Jamshed Khan Dasti said. “It underperformed. Then against New Zealand also there are signs the team didn’t want to win.

“We have been told by some respected and senior people and we are also trying to collect evidence that there might have been some hanky panky in the match against Australia and New Zealand.”

Again, I won’t comment on the New Zealand match, but only someone who has never watched cricket before would cast doubt on our performance against Australia. It’s very simple; when a team wins on the last ball of the match, it is not because the other team gifted them a win. Anything could have happened on that final ball; the batsman could have missed the ball or he could have hit it straight to the fielder. After playing poorly for most of the match, Pakistan had a brilliant final hour or so and nearly pulled off a miraculous victory. Instead of congratulating us on showing heart and fight, our players will now have to answer to parliament.