Born to be wild

This summer, Pakistan cricket has found temporary residence in England, like a visiting professor or a touring troupe, if you like, or alternatively, like an asylum seeker or a filthy squatter, which I don't like. Either way, Pakistan are very grateful to their generous hosts, and promise to be perfect guests. This is why I can safely say, without the aid of an eight-limbed German mollusc, that Pakistan will lose to England in the four-Test series later in the summer. It would only be polite; it is match-fixing at its most noble. Pakistan cricket: putting the "gentleman" back in "gentleman's game".

As for the Australia series, one expects the Pakistanis to compete with the ball, capitulate with the bat, and absolutely slaughter the Aussies in the one area that'll really hurt them: supporting the team.

Australians are proud of their skills as supporters. They drink voluminously, heckle viciously, sway and swing vigorously, and often don fancy-dress that would be deemed too outrageous even for an 80s transvestite night. But they do win a lot, which must help with all this fun and frolic. It's no sweat putting on a fake Merv Hughes moustache and a kangaroo costume and looking like a plonker when your team are 500 for 2. You're a less inhibited dancer when the opposition loses seven wickets in a session. It's easy to sing when you're winning.

But this summer the Australians are up against those who, win or lose, are the wildest cricket fans in the world. These mentalists are in-your-face and bang in your ears, with their horns, body paint and bhangra. And then they get up your nostrils too, when the Tupperware containing their mums' packed samosas and kebabs is opened.

Australian fans say "Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi" but when these guy shout in unison, it's a serious business involving the creator of the whole universe. (Yes, they do get intense.) If they were an army, they would not be the happy-go-lucky Barmy Army. They would be the Spartans from 300. If they were a band they would be the Sex Pistols at their most acid-tongued. If they were a book, they would be banned. I present to you the most lethal breed of spectator ever known to man: the British-Pakistani cricket fan.

I can safely say, without the aid of an eight-limbed German mollusc, that Pakistan will lose to England in the four-Test series later in the summer. It would only be polite

For a start, like all those with a demeanour verging on the militant, they are obsessed with the hair on their heads. If Pakistani curators paid as much attention to their work as their distant cousins in England do to the cultivation and cropping of their hair, Pakistan would have the best pitches in the world.

It does not stop at the forehead. Many British Pakistanis study engineering at university, and no wonder. Just look at their faces: the sharp angles, the bridging, the curves, the columns of hirsuteness, the pure open patches of bare brown skin. There are whole industries of artistry in the facial hair of these lads. And there is much variety, as one also sees the type who has forsaken the worldly concerns of the top part of the head and concentrates on downward growth from the cheeks and the chin. I believe this is being called "The Inzamam", but one suspects the origins of this look pre-date the former middle-order batsman.

The British Pakistani cricket fan is unfathomable, so spare me your Tebbit tests and post-colonial sociology. You will find a young man roaring out chants in praise of God's greatness, and a minute later pinching the bum of a cute but uninterested female fan at the beer counter. You will see someone chuck a plastic bottle at an opposition player fielding near the boundary, yet after the match the same person will escort 10 old ladies across the road with the gentle grace of a caressed on-drive. You will find a pack of them shouting "Who are ya?" as brutishly as an English football hooligan, and then dance sweetly and childishly for the TV camera when it turns towards their stand, seemingly oblivious to the cricket and also the poor uncle in front whose mixed chai is getting spilt.

I'm not looking forward to the summer, cricket-wise. Pakistan have too many Tests in too short a time, which will severely test their heavyweight bowlers and fatally expose their lightweight batsmen. But so what? If the cricket goes badly, I can always watch the stands, where my brothers - and a few sisters - will be doing their thing. And what a thing it is.