Inshallah Boys Played Well

About

Inshallah Boys Played Well is a catchphrase used to refer to a cricket team's performance. The phrase originated from incorrect transcriptions of former Pakistani cricket player Inzamam-ul-Haq's post-match interviews and has since turned into a way of complimenting or mocking a team's performance in any given match.

Origin

The phrase "Inshallah boys played well" is often credited to ex-Pakistani cricketer Inzamam-ul-Haq, who was notably not perfectly fluent in English, as indicated by various post-match interviews.

After the Pakistan vs. West Indies T20 cricket match in 2006, Inzamam gave an interview that gathered over 200,000 views in over 10 years on a January 5th, 2011, YouTube upload by paddy2667^[1] (seen below, left). In another post-match interview, Inzamam talked about how "the boys played well," providing one likely source for the catchphrase. The March 7th, 2021, video uploaded by Social Media Viral Videos^[2] has since gathered over 40,000 views in a year (seen below, right).

Videos of Pakistani post-match interviews are often uploaded in a mean-spirited fashion that is meant to mock the player's lack of fluency in English. This is indicated by the titles of various post-match interview uploads (seen below).^[3]

Another indicator that the phrase was made by someone to disparage Pakistani players is indicated by the bad grammatical structure of the sentence. "Inshallah" is a word that translates to "if Allah wills it" and is often used in order to give well wishes upon a future event. To say "Inshallah boys played well" for a match that has transpired is non-standard.

Spread

The phrase "Inshallah boys played well" grew to mainstream meme usage in 2017, with the Facebook ^[4] page The Frustrated Engineer posting a meme mocking Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi's English on March 8th, 2017, alongside a caption that read, "Inshallah boys played well." The post gathered over 10,000 likes in over five years (seen below).

On June 15th, 2017, a Quora^[5] user asked the question, "Has any Pakistani player ever said "inshallah boys played well," or is it just a meme?" to which Quora user Umer Hayat responded with, "This exact sentence is technically wrong. It could be Mash-Allah boys played well."

The phrase "boys played well" has notably entered cricket discourse as a genuine compliment, with Facebook^[6] page Modi Once More posting an image that contained the phrase "boys played well" on February 6th and gathering over 4,000 likes in eight months (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References