It’s a hot day in Lahore. Every day is hot during the summer and this one is no different. The Gaddafi Stadium lies empty, its stands under construction and the grass, untrodden, a lush green.

It is humbling for any cricket lover to walk on these hallowed grounds and think of all the matches now etched into cricket lore. I can clearly recall the win over South Africa in 2003, with Shoaib Akhtar in his element. The defining moment of that match was a vicious bouncer from Shoaib that sent Gary Kirsten to the hospital. After the ball hit Kirsten, Shoaib held him in his arms till the stretcher arrived — a rare trading of masculine aggression for compassion and concern. But just as much as the ground is an institution of Pakistan cricket, so is its ground staff, particularly the Chief Coordinator Haji Mohammad Bashir who has worked there since 1959, the year the Gaddafi Stadium hosted its first Test match.

“The grass looks like this because there is no cricket happening here,” says Haji Sahib, as his colleagues call him. These days, his voice contains a deep melancholy, the kind that stirs the listener enough to feel some of his loss. His eyes swell with tears at the lack of international cricket in Pakistan. “I pray to Allah that the grounds are filled and that good cricket is played here,” he says. But there is much more to what he says than lament. Haji Sahib is one of those people whose work defines them, and he has a great deal of pride in his accomplishments. There is a little bit of his legacy in every ground in Pakistan.

Groundsmen at the Gaddafi Stadium yearn for the days when there used to be international cricket there

“I helped build the ground in Sialkot, I remade the pitch at the National Stadium, Karachi, and most of the other grounds.” He says this believing in the value of his work is a lasting contribution to cricket and to Pakistan. “All the groundsmen in Pakistan have learnt something from him [Haji Sahib],” adds Abdul Ghani, the head curator at Gaddafi Stadium. “Some people work in the limelight, and other people work in the shadows.”

Abdul Ghani has spent the better part of his life at the ground as well, learning from Haji Sahib initially, and now overseeing most of the work himself. “Maintaining a ground is like a woman’s work, it never ends. No matter how much you might do, there is still work left over. You have to get up the next day and do the work again.”

“This ground is like my home,” Haji Sahib remarks. His memories of the place are still fresh and dates come to mind easily. He recalls the first Test that took place at the ground — on November 21, 1956 between Pakistan and Australia — and the last between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2009. The latter is not one he cares to talk about. But he is forthcoming about his favourite memory: “My most memorable match is an India-Pakistan encounter when Bishen Singh Bedi brought his team here [in 1978]. Zaheer Abbas scored 235 ... on the last day we needed 126 and we started batting around tea. Majid Khan scored 38 runs in what seemed like seconds ... that is my most memorable match.”

Listening to him tell the story, that too while sitting on the ground, virtually transports one back to that day when Majid Khan, Mudassar Nazar, Zaheer Abbas, and Asif Iqbal scored 128 runs in 20.4 overs to win the match by eight wickets. Pakistan won the next match at Karachi as well and the series 2-0.

“I remember that match,” says Abdul Ghani. “Pakistan needed to score the runs in a very short time. It was truly remarkable. Majid pulled out the leg stump and asked Kapil Dev if he should move it to avoid being hit because Kapil was bowling so far down the leg side.” He, too, longs for that kind of cricket to return to this ground.

“When there is a good match then the person that lives inside you comes alive,” he says philosophically. “There is an internal person and an external person in all of us and the one inside you wakes up when you do something bigger than yourself, when you do something for your country.”

The two men, along with other groundskeepers across the country, have dedicated their lives to maintaining the country’s stadiums. Theirs is the unseen labour that has made cricket possible in Pakistan. Even without any international matches being played here now, they still come to work and care for their grounds hoping to see another Test match. And another nail-biting finish.

Twitter: @Saad­_Scrawls

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, October 2nd, 2016