Cricket fever grips Chitral

Chitral -- On the eve of the big day of cricket, featuring the semi finals between arch rivals Pakistan and India, Chitral town shares the cricket fever with the rest of the country. Television antenna sellers have hiked the prices of simple antennas from Rs 80 to Rs 400.  Dish to home (DHTV) venues are in great demand as these will be able to tune sports channels showing the match on Wednesday afternoon.

Cricket fans are coming from distant places to the town to be able to participate in watching the match. Source from a local hotel, the  'Fairland Hotel' said they have an elderly gentleman guest from Arandu who has parked himself at the hotel two days in advance to watch the 'war game' as he calls it.  It is said about this gentleman that when a cricket match reaches a critical stage he cannot stand it and gets out of the room and shouts from there asking "what happened" after every ball.

On the other side of the picture are some who are totally oblivious of the whole frenzy. An afghan mason working at a construction site when asked whether he would take the day off to watch the match, replied "if I take off for the match, who will feed my children that day".  -- CN report, 29 Mar 2011