A Tribute to Cricket for Spearheading my English Language Acquisition – Sports and Language Learning

I often see parents worrying about language skills of their children. A closer look at the hobbies of such children will indicate that they are not passionate about any hobbies especially sports. Here I would detail the role of cricket in spearheading my English language acquisition.  As my interest grew, with cricket and started following the cricket there were some milestones.

The book that I read in 1980s

[Work in Process]
Coming soon

vignettes

I was into Urdu reading since my childhood as detailed elsewhere. However, English was a challenge for me as I had flunked in English in a monthly exam in 8th class at ICB in 1975. This was also the time that I was getting interested in live telecasts of cricket and other sports on PTV.
During late 1970s and early 1980s Shakeel Bhai would afflict me with his passion for cricket. Cricketer. Commentary
Mike Hendricks and our visit to Wah listening to the commentary
Hearing the commentary in early 1970 as we walked down the creek behind SBP building in F5 with Salma Apa collecting Mushrooms. Score of 444 for 4
Walters 8 wickets
West Indies 5 injured in Australian Tour by Lillee Massey
West Indies fast bowlers
World Cup -1 and 2
Brigadier Zia ur Rehman and India’s series in 1977, Zaheer Abbas, Miandad Imran Khan,
Iqbal Qasim and Asif Iqbal

Sarfraz 9 wickets
Patron’s Trophy finals
Centenary Test
Listening to Australia vs West Indies on Shortwave 3, tuning on and off, retries on old radios, poor reception
Dawn articles
Cricketer
International Cricketer
Chishty Mujahid and Iftikhar Ahmed
Larwood and bodyline bowling
Fingers that have spun the world for 309 wickets Gibbs
Hammonds and Suttcliffe
A farewell to cricket by Don Bradman
World Cup win. Watched from USA
Gradual disillusionment
Overdoze of cricket, over commercialization, over saturation

The Cricketer Pakistan and Cricketer Urdu