Cricket and its consequences

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The Hindu, 8 January

THE third successive instalment of what has become the annual India-Pakistan fixture is occasion for both celebration and reflection.

After decades in which this premiere sporting encounter was disrupted and distorted by political antagonism, the normalisation of cricketing links over the past two years must be good news for anyone concerned about the future of peace and democracy in south Asia. After all, if the two nations could not even meet on the playing field, what hope was there that the thorny issues of state bedevilling their relationship could ever be successfully addressed?

For cricket lovers – and not just in south Asia – the resumption of one of world sport’s great rivalries has been an unalloyed joy. And this year’s series promises to be even more competitive and exciting than the previous two. With Pakistan coming off an impressive victory over the Ashes-winning England team and India revitalised by new leadership, it would be a brave soul who would predict anything other than a close contest.

Young players on both sides – Akmal, Butt, Kaneria, Dhoni, Pathan – will aim to raise their games and consolidate their star-status. Significantly, Shoaib Akhtar has been reintegrated into the Pakistan side and is bowling with both fire and intelligence (and batting in the lower order with unaccustomed discipline). For a committed neutral like myself, the prospect of watching Dravid, Tendulkar and Sehwag duel with the Rawalpindi Express is an especially savoury one.

And then there is the gentle giant, Inzamam. Outstanding as the achievements of Tendulkar, Lara, Warne and Flintoff have been over the past year, my cricketer of 2005 is the Pakistani captain. He may not be the most alert tactician around, but I doubt any cricketer anywhere has played a greater number of critical or decisive innings for his team over the past 12 months – and always in ravishing, wristy style. He has led by calm example: displaying a quiet commitment to the welfare of his team both on and off the field.

However, history allows no room for complacency. The cricket fixture remains vulnerable to communal and ultra-nationalist mischief-makers in both countries. In the name of “security”, all kinds of destructive games can be played; venues on both sides of the border are chopped and changed; minor incidents are endowed with disproportionate significance. (Of course, the record of English cricket officials in this regard is also a shameful one).

It’s important that we do not ask or expect too much from the game of cricket. It will not resolve the questions of Kashmir, nuclear weapons or competition over resources. At most, cricket between India and Pakistan can serve as a confidence-building measure, one of various forms of people-to-people interaction that sustain pressure on leaders in both countries. Fans and journalists from India who made the historic cross-border journey two years ago were deeply moved by what they found – not the stereotype of jehadi fanaticism but a deep hunger for contact and friendship. For many, the experience was a revelation. If only more people could enjoy it.

With a new team in charge of the BCCI, the autocratic rule of the Dalmiya clique has come to an end, and not before time. But if the change merely results in the ascendancy of a rival clique, little will have been gained. The recent Ganguly affair shows how easily Indian cricket can be blown off course by opportunist pressures. What’s needed is transparency, accountability and an entirely new approach to the distribution of the wealth pouring into the Board’s coffers. The priority has to be grass-roots development – and not only in the major metros – along with investment in providing a safer and more comfortable environment for India’s long-suffering spectators.

Headline-grabbing boasts about the size of the national team’s new sponsorship deal are both an exaggeration and a diversion from the real challenges facing Indian cricket. It’s worth noting that the wages bill at Chelsea FC or the New York Yankees is many times the annual income of all the professional cricketers of south Asia combined.

Too often, the glittering prizes associated with cricket are used as an emotional proxy for Indian aspirations for global economic stature. The game is a symbol of new wealth, but also of enduring and widening inequalities. The special quality of cricket in south Asia is not, in the end, its function as a money-spinner but its role in popular culture, its street-level vibrancy.

It may sound obvious but it needs to be reiterated that cricket was not invented in order to serve as a bandwagon for businessmen, politicians or military dictators. The game lives because it raises the universal joy of harmless play to a high level of technique and drama, because it displays so effectively the ever-surprising capacity and diversity of the human race.