On home turf: First-ever experience for many local players

For many of the local players, it will be the first time they will play on the pitch of their home ground. Although part of different teams, they will be coming together and sharing the mutual feeling of excitement in the dressing room of Gaddafi Stadium.

“We all are so excited – probably this is the reason why I could not sleep until late at night,” Umar Amin, who is playing for Quetta Gladiators, said while talking to Geo.TV. “Given the excitement of people and involvement on every level, the atmosphere [at the stadium] will be electrifying.”

Amin made his one-day debut in Sri Lanka in May 2010 and played his first Test match in England in the same year, but he has never had the chance to play on the pitch of his home ground as he will this time at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

Delighted at the prospect, Amin says the way the nation stands united for this great day is incredible. 

When asked what he felt about the security situation, Amin said he went to practice matches in the city and was satisfied with the measures that have been taken.

Many players, of both Quetta Gladiators and Peshawar Zalmi, started playing cricket after the terrorist incident outside Gaddafi Stadium in 2009, which is why they had never, until now, got a chance to grace the pitch of their home ground for a major match.

In 2009, a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers was targetted near Gaddafi Stadium. The tragic day had claimed lives of several people and left multiple Sri Lankan cricketers injured. But what the incident also did was to put an end to international cricket in Pakistan, until the Zimbabwean team visited on a short tour in 2015.

For a nation that thrives on cricket, the end to international matches at local grounds is no less than a nightmare. However, the return of cricket to Pakistan today has brought life to a nation that was also mourning the havoc recently wreaked by a series of terror attacks in different parts of the country.

The excitement of people cannot only be gauged by their posts about PSL on social media; it could also be witnessed when the tickets for the final started selling like hot cakes.

While many have thronged to Lahore for the match from different parts of the country, there are also those who were seen in queues outside banks even before the sun rose so that they could make it to the final match.