A visit at an interesting time. As the Asian Cup is underway in Sri Lanka – jointly hosted by Pakistan, which was supposed to host the tournament but had to give in to India’s decision to not play any matches in Pakistan – the President and Vice-President of India’s cricketing body visited their counterpart in Pakistan the other day.
Yes, the whole affair has left a bad taste in the mouth, given how excited Pakistani cricket fans were to get to host the tournament this time round, but the quick visit has signalled that our neighbours to the east aren’t completely opposed to the idea of any cooperation.
The visiting duo acknowledged that the ongoing tournament is Pakistan’s and that it was the reason they were visiting. Some attempts to mend fences, presumably. This is the first such visit to Pakistan since 2008, and PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf met them warmly.
India, Pakistan cricket matches are amongst the top watched sporting events on the face of the planet. Amongst everything else, there’s also a lot of money riding on it. And despite the incredibly charged atmosphere, the camaraderie between the cricketers themselves engenders a lot of goodwill. And that is not to mention the Pakistanis who sketch Kohli murals and the Indians who set alarms for Shaheen Afridi’s first couple of overs, regardless of whoever in the world Pakistan is playing.
The Indian government, and through them, the Indian cricket bureaucracy, however, have been refusing to play ball, quite literally. From their decision to not allow the then top ranked T20 team to be bid upon in the Indian Premier League, to the decision to never let the national team set foot on Pakistani soil, to the recent kerfuffle over the Asia Cup, the list is long.
The Indians want to talk to us about terror. The Indians also want to posture for domestic politics, where the anti-Pakistan card is a hot political ticket. The former is a valid position, ostensibly. The latter isn’t.
The BJP is here to stay. It outstrips the rest of the political parties, and then some. Since 2014, there is no leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, because none of the other parties even has the required minimum requisite percentage to even qualify for the position. But that does not necessarily mean we can write some things off. Only a Nixon can go to China, as they say in US politics. Similarly, some decisions can only be made by the BJP if they are meant to be sustainable. In that vein, perhaps we do need to address some of their concerns, for them to communicate to their voters and get us out of the current rut, not just in cricket.
