The first thing that greets you in the small cluster of sports shops, just a short walk from the Saddar metro stop, is the smell of rubber and old leather. Then comes the sound—bats clinking against one another as they are taken off the racks, the flutter of jerseys being unfolded, the low hum of a pedestal fan that never seems to cool the shop down, no matter how fast it spins.
Inside Al-Hamza Sports, cramped between a tire shop and a kebab corner, 52-year-old Iqbal Anwar is already halfway through his morning, though it’s only 10:30 a.m. He is holding out two different rolls of electrical tape for a teenage boy in a school uniform who is insisting on the “sticky kind”—the one that doesn’t peel after three overs. He also wants it to be pink.Â
“Two rolls for eighty,” Iqbal says, distracted. “You want that big bat too?”Â
The boy nods, eyes on the slab of wood leaning in the corner. He had come in to buy just the tape and a couple tennis balls, but he had been sneaking looks at the bat the entire time he was in the shop. Iqbal picked up on it. The bat is a monstrosity. It is a light weight, curved thing meant to hit straight sixes against a tape ball, not the English Willow that players use out in the middle. But when you’re playing in the streets and things get heated, you might as well be out there in the middle of the pitch.Â
On the side, Iqbal’s son, Bilal, is scribbling prices on a tiny receipt pad nearby, barely keeping up.Â
It is May, and the HBL Pakistan Super League is back. For Iqbal, this is the month when the numbers shift. Sales that hover around Rs 3,000 to 5,000 per day in the winter swell to Rs 15,000, sometimes even Rs 20,000, especially if Lahore Qalandars or Islamabad United is playing a night match. The content in this publication is expensive to produce. But unlike other journalistic outfits, business publications have to cover the very organizations that directly give them advertisements. Hence, this large source of revenue, which is the lifeblood of other media houses, is severely compromised on account of Profit’s no-compromise policy when it comes to our reporting. No wonder, Profit has lost multiple ad deals, worth tens of millions of rupees, due to stories that held big businesses to account. Hence, for our work to continue unfettered, it must be supported by discerning readers who know the value of quality business journalism, not just for the economy but for the society as a whole.To read the full article, subscribe and support independent business journalism in Pakistan
