A cauldron called Karachi

Andrew Miller’s Pakistan tour diary - December 12 to December 18

Monday December 13

The National Stadium get ready for action in a city where action is never in short supply © Getty Images

And so, after a fortnight of colonial cool in Lahore, it was time to trek south to Beirut for the third one-day international. Beg pardon, Karachi. Given the reputation the city has gained in the past couple of years, it’s an easy mistake to make.

There is a definite edge to Karachi. In places, it feels like one of those bad boy cities of the Mediterranean - Marseilles or Naples, for instance, with their intermittent palm trees and sun-saturated inhabitants.

It is a raucous city, in which everyone is on the go, and everyone is on the make. Taxi drivers have an Arabesque understanding of the value of the pound, while little kids swarm around the innumerable traffic lights, relentlessly tapping the stranded motorists for spare change.

Karachi is hot, incessantly hot. Last night I was huddled round an electric fire in my digs near the Gadaffi Stadium, but after a two-hour plane trip south, it is hard to believe this is still the same country, never mind a country entering the depths of winter. No wonder the citizens have a reputation for fractiousness. I shudder to imagine how oppressive the temperatures must be when the sun is really beating down.

This is not a city that bothers with niceties, and therein lies the mistrust that colours its reputation. Where Lahore might soothe you with a glimpse of its innumerable monuments, Karachi is a functional metropolis in the starkest sense. It does not exist for the benefit of its visitors, and it barely seems to exist for itself.

One of the first sights we pass on our bedlamic trek from the airport is a roundabout adorned with an attractive fluted stone sculpture. There is a bauble sat at the top that resembles precisely the logo of a popular soft-drinks manufacturer. I did not notice whether it was "Pepsi Chowk" that we had just passed through, but it would not have surprised me in the least.

Outside the Sheraton, the imposing team hotel, a swarm of security personnel were already making their presence known, even though England’s arrival was a full 24 hours away. Just around the corner, tucked away behind a street full of official Government residences, lay the US enclave, where a machine-gun nest lay parked beneath a barbed-wired wall, next to a pair of traffic-calming barriers.

This was most certainly a different world to the one we had just left, though not necessarily an unfamiliar one. The hustle, the bustle, the slight air of cynicism. It almost reminded me of London. Perhaps that’s why Karachi is so feared. It’s so much easier to romanticise than empathise.

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