Alright let me say this. I hardly read through opening posts as big as the one in this thread, as most of the time it's bulls (exceptions excluded). But Shehwar bro, your first few words just fixed my eyes to the screen with superglue and I just had to finish the whole article in, as we'd say in Bangla, ek nissheshe.
Awesome write up, you just took me to those days. My cricket journey started round about the same age that yours started in and it was the 96' world cup. Though being a 7yr old at that time, I only remember parts of it. But that '97 ICC trophy is still alive on my mind. Unfortunately, I didn't used to go out much and so listening to radio or TV sitting with mates wasn't a natural for me still. But thankfully, a elder cousin sister of mine was as interested in cricket as I was. And we had a dodgy radio, which always used to go nuts during my efforts to hearing the cricket commentary. But even that radio started working properly in the final against Kenya. I guess I was too little to realise that we already booked our place in the next WC by beating Scotland in the semis. So I feel i was thinking in the line that we had to be champions to go through or something. So it was even more massive..lol! Remember those lines from, as you said, Zafar Ullah Sharafat, ''bat-e ball-e hoini'', ''shimanar baire'', ''ebong choy'' etc etc. I remember keeping count of the number of sixes we were hitting in that match. I forgot what exactly I did after we had won, but I saw people from our area going out in the street with thala-bashon deg-dekchi etc. Unfortunately, I couldn't join them coz I was home alone. But that particular image of my neighbouring elder bros rallying and screaming their lungs out is just permanently wallpapered in my mind's desktop. Sweet old days!!!!
And I wish I had more to write.
