The Hindu : Sport : India-Pakistan cricket

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 03, 2005

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India-Pakistan cricket - getting it right

By Nirmal Shekar

The chilling drum-beat, as familiar to sportslovers' ears as funeral music may be to an undertaker's, has begun.

It is Us-versus-Them time all over again. All the discredited yet familiar labels are back in circulation. Well-worn cliches long past their use-by date have been dusted up like a disused sandalwood garland to greet the visitors from across the border.

India versus Pakistan — the mother of all battles. The series everyone is waiting for. Clash of titans. Grudge series. Revenge series. Explosive clash of arch-rivals.

Are there any rationally articulable grounds for such trite descriptions? As happens every single time India and Pakistan prepare to play cricket, the first victim _ truth _ has already been claimed.

You first maim and then bury truth before even contemplating kicking off a cricket series between India and Pakistan. For, truth is the biggest enemy standing in the way of a financial windfall from matches involving the two neighbours.

Even at a time when the climate is hardly conducive to adopting an aggressive adversarial approach to promoting, watching and appreciating India-Pakistan cricket, old habits cling to some of us like birthmarks untouched by any sort of time-assisted cultural plastic surgery.

The visiting skipper, at his worst a level-headed gentleman, has said that there was no question of playing for "revenge", something that sport has no room for. But, then, amidst all the hype, amidst all the trumpeting and sabre rattling on the sidelines, you'd think that sport (read India-Pakistan cricket) has no room for the likes of Inzamam-ul-Haq.

Lavish hype

This is because when India and Pakistan play it becomes very hard to maintain any sort of objectivity and perspective, very hard not to be drowned in the tidal waves of lavish hype triggered by the workings of dangerous, absolutist minds.

The dictates of logic would suggest that for the first time in long years it may be possible to rid ourselves of the excess baggage of both evolutionary history and the political history of the sub-continent and view the contests as intensely competitive yet wonderfully friendly matches involving two richly talented cricket teams.

Faith in humanity

The sporting reaction of the Chennai crowd to Pakistan's thrilling victory at Chepauk in 1999 and the atmosphere in the stands in Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad last year, when the visiting Indian cricketers were greeted and felicitated with such spontaneous warmth, were enough to reaffirm our faith in humanity and its abiding values.

Yet, each time the contests draw near, the sickening preconceptions about what stokes the flames in India-Pakistan sport reappear to draw us back in time to darker days.

The point is, we no longer have to turn India-Pakistan sport into what it is not _ an emotion-charged acrimonious battle to determine superiority of various hues _ to invest it with meaning. For it may now be possible, at long last _ and not a minute too soon _ to view it purely as entertainment.

A brilliant spell by the wily Kaneria or a magnificent innings from Inzamam can offer as much watching pleasure as Kumble's magic or Tendulkar's genius at the crease.

Viewed from this standpoint, sport stands elevated, and with it our own spirits too. For there are no hidden agendas here, no sniping at false targets; merely a healthy celebration of sporting feats that appeal to our aesthetic sensitivity.

Not surprisingly, the ones who realise this are the contestants themselves. The Indian and the Pakistani players not only share a healthy respect for each other's playing skills but are also the best of friends. They might have fallen short of expectations as players, from time to time, but as goodwill ambassadors you cannot fault them at all.

Pure entertainment

In the event, taking a leaf from the players' book, if all the fans begin to view India-Pakistan sport as pure entertainment and nothing more _ simply refusing to get carried away by whatever promotional gimmicks on offer _ they themselves (the fans) will be the biggest winners.

For, when you seek entertainment alone, the need to identify yourself with a winner _ for whatever reason _ vanishes.

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