No TV Channel gave courage to "Love Pakistan T20 Match for Peace at Peshawar"
After 8 long years, the Arbab Niaz Stadium of Peshawar featured a T20 cricket match in which many former and current national cricket stars of Pakistan took part. The stadium had a capacity to accommodate about 20,000 people, however more than 24000 got entry into the stadium due to the extra ordinary rush of the fans who had turned up to see their favorite cricket stars in action.
Those who could not go to the stadium had their TV remotes in their hands and were going up and down the list of TV channels in a hope to watch the match live. However, to their dismay, there was not a single national television that would broadcast this important T20 match being played for a great cause, Peace.
Whenever there is a negative incident in Peshawar or anywhere in the province, these private televisions of Pakistan do not waste a second in broadcasting that event live. No one invites them to cover that incident but still they do reach uninvited. Sometimes they even reach the place before the law enforcing authorities could, and God forbid if the law enforcing authorities stop them from coverage, these media personnel are ever ready to go into war against them. However, today when the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government took the initiative to organize a T20 match for peace, not a single channel was there to broadcast it live.
The KP government must have painstakingly arranged this T20 match in which big names of Pakistan cricket, both former and current, took part. These players took part in the match for one reason, to spread the message of peace. The crowd was holding play cards with different messages in favor of peace. However, it seems that peace is not a lucrative keyword for our media.
Geo Super, which always brags about being the first sports channel of the country and which spares no opportunity in broadcasting the Indian Premier League live, was nowhere to be seen. According to this so called Pakistani sports channel, airing a UFC match held more priority than a cricket being played for the noble cause of peace, and that too in the city of Peshawar. However, we can understand their situation as it seems broadcasting a T20 cricket match for peace was not financially feasible to this channel whose agenda is, business first.
However, PTV Sports, which is a state owned channel, also did not bother to broadcast this match. The channel was showing an old match of Pakistan versus South Africa while this important T20 match was being played at Arbab Niaz Stadium Peshawar. The motto of PTV has always been to show a soft image of Pakistan. But today, when a cricket match was being played in Peshawar for no other reason but to show to the world that we were a peace loving nation, PTV Sports was nowhere to been to project this soft image to the world.
The media of Pakistan is far away from development. We have a media that covers only and that too if that event will propagate more negativity and can generate breaking news. Ignoring today’s match is an example of it. Cricket is the only game that unites the whole country together, and today’s match was not just an ordinary match, it was match for a cause, to spread the message of peace. Can there be any important than Peace for Pakistan? Shame on our Media!
Some importan hihglights about the game are as below:
The match was played between Pakistan Peace XI defeated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa XI by five wickets in a peace cricket match that was played here on Sunday, SAMAA reports.
A huge crowd gathered here to see the first match that was played in the Arbab Niaz Stadium at Peshawar in last seven years.
Famous Cricketer of Pakistan and KP Shahid Afridi scored 66 runs from 19 balls. The crowd loved him and his performance.
Other famous players of Pakistan Cricket, including Imran Nazir, Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar, Inzimamul Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Salim Malik and Abdul Qadir also took part in the match.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and other high profile figures from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and the ruling party attended the match in Arbab Niaz Stadium.
Salim Malik made quick half century while Afridi and Razzaq took two wickets each.
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