Rangers, machine guns, and Zed's dinner

Neil Manthorp, in Karachi for the Pakistan-South Africa Test and writing for the Supercricket website, finds the people friendly, but also notices the security officers with their machine guns lurking everywhere.

On the roof there were two snipers with extremely powerful weapons and telescopic sights, one permanently trained on the road leading to the main gate and the other towards the field of play. There were 10 more Rangers with them on the roof and they were not slacking. All were armed. Reality kicked in once again.

A more pleasant aspect of the stay in Karachi was a dinner party hosted by former Pakistan batsman Zaheer Abbas.

Zaheer Abbas and his wonderful, equally gracious wife Samina ("call me Sam, everyone does") live in a house so elegant, so cleverly designed to beat the heat, and so stylishly decorated that one could rightly call it a small palace. He is revered in Pakistan, and rightly so.