The recent controversy over cricket at Srinagar’s National Institute of Technology (NIT) may have triggered a nationwide debate on patriotism but Shahid Afridi is the poster boy for seven villages in south Kashmir where cricket is the key to survival.
The villages of Bijbehara, Charsoo, Halmullah, Sangam, Pujteng, Mirzapur and Sethar on the Jammu-Srinagar highway are home to more than 100 factories making cricket bats that are sold across the country and abroad.
Oblivious to the frenetic discussions, the bat-making villages of Kashmir are banking on Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi’s posters to attract eyeballs and sell bats.
Sharifa Begum, from Borivali in Mumbai, who married a Kashmiri in 1974, has set up her own bat factory ‘Bombay Bats’ in Anantnag’s Sangam area, 50 km south of Srinagar. Posters of firebrand Afridi adorn its walls.
“Boom Boom Afridi is the face that sells here. It helps us to do brisk business,” Ms. Begum, in her fifties, tells The Hindu .
Ms. Begum says it’s not cricket tournaments like the Indian Premier League (IPL) that spur demand for bats in the Valley. “It’s during the India-Pakistan matches that we see brisk sales. They should play more,” she adds.
Most entrepreneurs among the 100 operating units here said sales went up when Pakistan and India clashed in the Twenty20 World Cup in March this year.
Besides Afridi, South Africa’s Hashim Amla and India’s Captain Cool, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, adorn walls and banners.
“After Afridi, people are mesmerised by Amla and Dhoni, who is cool and hardly seen sledging or abusing opponents,” says Muhammad Rafiq, owner of the ‘Tokyo Sports’ bats brand. “It doesn’t matter whether Pakistan wins or India, people use our willow bats,” he says.
“Let sports be sports,” says Imran Khan, another bat maker.
All the way to Chennai“On an average, I export 30,000 bats a year. My willow is popular in Chennai where I send at least 10,000 bats,” Mr. Rafiq says.
