Flat wicket

The outcome and quality of India-Pakistan cricket matches seem to be heavily dependent on the relations between the two countries

Sanjay Kapoor Delhi
Politics accompanied by a daunting fear of losing has once again begun to weigh heavily on cricketing ties between India and Pakistan. Long gone is the magnanimity so carefully orchestrated by Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf when Pakistan's cricket board allowed the visiting Indian cricket team to walk away with the honours. In the historic 2004 series in Pakistan, five one-day internationals and all test matches were decided and the magic of the game had rubbed off on relations between the two countries. United Nations and other international bodies applauded the role of cricket in bringing about a thaw between the two neighbours.

Even though there has been some movement in bilateral ties between the two countries, the current India-Pakistan test series suddenly reflects a better appreciation of the problems that stare the two countries in the face: the Kashmir issue still defies solution and cross-border terrorism now has even Pakistan blaming India for violence in Balochistan.

One could ask: are we going back to the pre-2004 days? Take a look at the loss-proof manner in which the two sides have gone about in their games. Each of the two test matches has seen the two sides accumulating more than 1,000 runs. Bowling has been massacred and there has been no hope for a result from the day the match has commenced. Pitches, cold weather and rocket science were brought in as explanations for why the bowlers were not getting any purchase from the ground or off the air. In some ways, these pretexts did not wash with the cricket watchers who witnessed an enthralling contest between Pakistan and the visiting English team. The same pitches that have produced a dud now served as the arena for some of the most hotly contested matches.

So what is happening now? Although it is still early days before we go back to the era when India-Pakistan would just refuse to play to win, there is plenty of evidence to show that the players are on edge. Take a look at the sledging display between Shahid Afridi and Irfan Pathan or Shoiab Akhtar giving a mouthful to Indian captain Rahul Dravid. Akhtar's 140 km/hr beamer to MS Dhoni without as much as an apology promised to turn the situation ugly. Umpire Rudi Koetzen may have made light of it, but it does not take much effort for the situation to turn ugly when the spectators are getting bored with safety-first matches.

Right up to the 1980s, the test matches between the two neighbours had been an exercise in self-preservation. Defensive batting followed by negative bowling had made these series meaningless. There was a dramatic change once Imran Khan took over as the captain of the Pakistan team and he refused to follow the diktats of the board and the pressures of the ruling establishment to demand safe pitches. In those days, President Zia-ul-Haq practised his own version of cricket diplomacy and there was a certain kind of comfort at display in striving for a result.

The two sides refused to visit each other from the early 1990s right up to 2004, but they did cross swords in one-day internationals either in the Emirates or in other international arenas. Those became an occasion for boisterous jingoism. The most abiding memory has been the last-ball sixer by Javed Miandad off a Chetan Sharma full toss in the 1986 Australasia cup in Sharjah. Pakistan's victory triggered off wild celebrations all over the Gulf region. Since then the stakes have been so high that the Indian cricket board was quite uncomfortable with the idea that it should lose in its engagement with Pakistan. In a bizarre moment of madness, it even forbade Gulf organisers from holding matches on Friday, the day of prayer in an Islamic society. Needless to say, these kinds of changes did not work.