In 2022, international cricket made its much-anticipated, full-fledged return to Pakistan. Australia arrived in March for their first tour since 1998, followed by England and New Zealand, close to the end of the year.

It was a bonanza for cricket fans in the country; but those in Lahore, the seasonal winter smog that continues to intensify each year, missed out on watching Ben Stokes’ England and Kane Williamson’s New Zealand in action.

Lahore has become a no-go area for cricket in winter due to its poor visibility and air quality. England and Pakistan, however, were still engulfed by smog in the second Test in Multan, a venue chosen over Lahore to escape the phenomenon.

Multan doesn’t see as much smog as Lahore, but last year there were other factors at play. The devastating floods that ravaged the country hadn’t dispersed from South Punjab. The standing floodwater evaporated in the mornings, contributing to the dense smog. It was also stubble-burning season, where large tracts of land are set on fire after harvest to clear fields for the next crop.

The blazing morning sun did burn down the haze before noon, but the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was taking no chances and subsequently shifted the second Test between Pakistan and New Zealand from Multan to Karachi, where the sea breeze prevents smog from building up.

The previous year, at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the marathons were run in Sapporo, 1,000km north of the Japanese capital, due to heat concerns for athletes. A typhoon that made landfall during the Games also forced organisers to reschedule rowing and surfing events.

For the Winter Olympics in 2010, 2014 and 2022, artificial snow was needed on the tracks. Grand Slam tennis events are also seeing heat-induced retirements each year.

At the recent ICC One-day International World Cup in India, a match between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka was played amid hazardous smog in New Delhi; the same venue where in 2017, players of India and Sri Lanka vomited on the pitch during their Test match.

Organisers deemed it necessary to have repeated breaks in play and to install oxygen cylinders in their dressing rooms. For the World Cup game, both teams were forced to cancel their pre-match practice sessions due to the air quality.

In late 2017, months after Pakistan cricket greats Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq hung up their boots after an enthralling finish in the third Test against the West Indies, Dominica’s Windsor Park was devastated by Hurricane Maria.

Researchers studying the Category 5 hurricane said it was “due to anthropogenic climate change” that “we get these hurricanes that drop huge amounts of precipitation”.

Then, just this month, Dominica pulled out of hosting matches of next year’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies, failing to meet implementation timelines for upgradation.

Looking at these examples, it is obvious to anyone that climate change, more than ever before, is impacting sport worldwide.

Peter Frankopan, a Professor of Global History at Oxford University and an ardent cricket fan, has been speaking for years about the challenges facing the game due to the climate crisis. For him, there is a pressing need to adapt.

“Cricket is the ball sport most affected by climate change — partly because of the countries it is played in, partly because of the length of games; even ODIs take the best part of eight hours,” Frankopan, the author of the book, ‘The Earth Transformed’, told Dawn.

“Players and spectators alike can be exposed to full blazing sun for hours, days even on end, with little or no shade. And then of course there is air quality too, which is not just a problem for cricket or sport, but for all of us everywhere on earth.

“Respiratory and other physical and mental health problems are closely linked to pollution, which we know correlates with lower life expectancies. So the question goes far beyond just cricket.

“The answer, though, is the same for cricket as it is for life as a whole: we need to re-think things, we need to change how we do things, and we need to adapt.”

Adaptation is key in times of such crisis. The International Olympic Committee and global football body FIFA have been leading the........

© Dawn Prism