BOMBAY, 12 March 2004 — The dreams of a whole new generation of cricket buffs will have become a reality. We are just a day away from that historic breakthrough in the hard-core sporting relations between India and Pakistan. There have been some probing with some minor exchanges of late but the real big thing is at hand now.
Sensitivities, diplomacy … How much of these can you wear down, as the two top teams in world cricket cross swords with the first match of the one-day series tomorrow. The whole world’s focus, including that of countries who do not even play cricket, will be on the series, as much for the game itself, as for its ultimate fall-out in terms of the much sought after peace and harmony and a spirit of cooperation that it is expected to usher in.
Both sides have been carefully instructed not to wear their emotions on their shirt-sleeves, as of the old.
Turn your rivalry into display of your best ability on the field of play and not through acts of sledging or eyeball-to-eyeball contact, the players of the host country have been told. The Indian team too has come to Pakistan with similar instructions..
Will such an approach, rare as it is in these days of razor-keen rivalry, not lead to greater involvement in the game and as much, a contest of the highest quality ? Yes, indeed, it will.
Those packing the stadia and millions upon millions watching the matches on television, will thus have a veritable feast in store for them. Apart from India and Pakistan, 17 other countries are taking either live or recorded telecast of the matches. Three leading channels in the world are setting up their own studios with their own anchors far removed from the very venues of the matches. Fox Sports in England will have Sunil Gavaskar as one of the lead anchors. He will thus be in England instead of Pakistan, where he would have been among the most welcome celebrity.
Hundreds of celebrities from India, from the world of sports, cinema, business and politics, will be crossing over to attend the matches. As the days go on this list will get longer and longer.
There have already been several pleasant preludes by way close get-together of minds and hearts from countries before this, the biggest “invasion’ of Indians into Pakistan.
A leading awards function was deliberately held in Dubai recently so that a host of film celebrities from Pakistan could not only attend but actively take part. Similarly, a delegation of businessmen from Pakistan exchanged ideas with their Indian counterparts and even stayed back to take part in festival of Holi.
Coming to cricket, it is expected to be a series that will not only be well fought but also one which will, no doubt, promote, for the first time, the real spirit of the game as propounded by Sunil Gavaskar in his address last year to the ICC, where he had come down heavily on acts of sledging, which, he said, had brought the game into disrepute.
The last time that an important cricket series was played in this kind of spirit was way back in 1961, between Australia and the West Indies Down Under. The two captains, Richie Benaud and Frank Worrell, were supreme symbols of sporting spirit rarely seen on the cricket field. The first-ever tied Test at Brisbane further whetted the appetite of the fans, who too reflected the spirit in which the whole series was played. At the end of it all, Frank Worrell and his team were given a ticker-tape farewell as they motored from their hotel to the airport in Sydney. Thousands lined the route and cheered wildly. Worrell had to pull out dark glasses from his pocket and put it on to hide the tears of joy that welled in his eyes.
The Indian team’s momentous tour of Pakistan is generally expected to end that way. It is the fans, as much as the players themselves, who can make this happen The great power of sports to forge relationship will be on its severest test, so will be the hopes of millions on both sides of the border for a more peaceful and friendlier tomorrow.
