The Last Over

The cricket ground was never grand. It wasn’t the kind of place you’d see on television, with painted stands or polished pitches. It was rough, sometimes dusty, sometimes too damp after the rain. But to us, it was sacred. To us, it was a world of its own.

We were a group of boys from different cities who had all somehow ended up in Islamabad. Some came chasing education, others for work, some simply pulled by the capital’s promise of something bigger. Different accents, different stories, different pasts—but once we held a bat, a ball, or simply fielded under the open sky, all those differences melted away.

It started in 2023. None of us expected it to matter so much at first. “Let’s just play for fun,” someone had said. And fun it was. Our evenings turned into matches, our weekends became tournaments, our breaks between studies or shifts at work transformed into strategies about who would open the batting or who should bowl the last over.

Those days had their own rhythm. The sound of leather against willow, the echo of laughter after a dropped catch, the mock arguments about whether a ball had really hit the boundary or not. Someone would always bring cold drinks, another would complain about the umpiring. And when the sun sank low behind the Margalla Hills, painting the sky with gold and purple, we would walk off the field together, tired but alive, bound by something deeper than just cricket.

But time has its own bowling style—it delivers balls you can’t predict.

Slowly, the team began to change. Some friends couldn’t stay. One had family issues, another had to move for a job. A few completed their education and returned to their hometowns. Each departure left a gap on the field, a silence in our huddle, an absence that no new player could truly fill. The scoreboard of our friendship was starting to look different, not with runs or wickets, but with names missing from the lineup.

I remember one evening especially well. The sun was setting, and we were only six players instead of eleven. The game felt incomplete, yet we played anyway. The ball rolled slower on the rough pitch, and the laughter wasn’t as loud as it used to be. I caught myself looking at the empty spots in the field, remembering who used to stand there. The absence was louder than the game itself.

Cricket had been our excuse, but it was never just about the sport. It was about belonging. It was about finding family in a city that wasn’t our hometown. It was about the joy of forgetting work stress, academic deadlines, and personal struggles—if only for a couple of hours.

Now, when I pass by those grounds, they seem both alive and empty at the same time. Alive with the echoes of what we had built, but empty without the faces that gave them meaning. I can still picture us—running after a mistimed shot, celebrating a six, or falling to the ground after a dramatic dive to stop a boundary. Those images float in my mind like highlights from a match that ended too soon.

Sometimes, I wonder if we knew we were living the best overs of our lives while they were happening. Did we realize how fragile those moments were? That one day, we’d all be scattered—still alive, still connected by memory, but no longer sharing the same pitch?

It hurts, but it also teaches. Life, like cricket, is not meant to be perfect. Some matches end early, some overs are too expensive, some catches are dropped. What matters is the spirit with which we play. We may not share the same ground anymore, but those bonds remain etched in the heart like runs scored on a scorecard no one can erase.

I still dream sometimes. Maybe one day we’ll all gather again, if only for one match. Maybe the field won’t look the same, and maybe we won’t play with the same energy as before, but it won’t matter. We’ll laugh at how rusty our shots have become, how our bowling no longer swings the way it used to, and how we get tired too soon. But the joy of being together again will make the game unforgettable, no matter how it’s played.

Until then, I carry those days with me like a treasured bat—worn, scratched, but impossible to throw away. The friendships we forged on that rough Islamabad ground are more than memories. They are reminders that life, like cricket, is always changing, always moving forward, but never truly leaving behind the innings that shaped us.

In the end, the story of those matches is not about victory or defeat. It is about a group of young men who found each other, who made the city feel less lonely, who turned ordinary evenings into golden ones. And though the team has scattered, the spirit remains—alive in the heart, alive in the shadows of the field, alive in every ball that reminds me of the friends who once stood by my side.

This was, and always will be, our last over together.