BOMBAY, 13 February 2004 — How swiftly have things changed on the whole perspective of the Indian team’s tour of Pakistan! Just two weeks ago, everything looked so rosy as much on the eventuality of breaking a 15-year hoodoo as on the prospects of the visitors giving as excellent an account of themselves as never before. Today, while the one looks shaky the other hope appears shattered and how.
First things first. The Pakistan Cricket Board and the Pakistani government, right from President Musharraf downward, had probably never worked so hard and so meticulously to make a visit by an Indian team possible. The new-found warmth on both sides and the eagerness to normalize relations may have been a big boost to their endeavor, even then, it wasn’t going to be easy to raise the level of confidence on both sides, what with a stalemate of 15 years after the last visit of the Indian team.
A delegation of cricket administrators from India visited Pakistan to work out the nitty-gritty of the tour. Their week-long stay and visits to various likely match-venues was said to have been “very useful” in finally clinching the much-awaited tour, which many people describe as the ultimate test of the emerging relationship of friendship and trust between the two countries.
Now, suddenly, India’s leading players, including captain Saurav Ganguly, have started finding excuses for giving the much looked-after tour a go-by. They have raised the bogey of security.
“We have no problems playing in Pakistan but we want greater assurances on our safety,” said the Indian skipper soon after his arrival after a hectic 80 days tour of Australia. Although, we all wish that cricket should be kept free of politics, the question of security is a diplomatic matter and ought to be handled by the governments of the two countries.
If the Indian side is convinced by the assurances given by the other side then it becomes the entire responsibility of the host country to see that the visitors are not only safe but also enjoy the tour.
Now, it looks like the Indian players will seek assurances from their own board, which, in turn, will seek the final permission of the Indian government, even though the forthcoming tour has already been cleared by all the ministries concerned.
The tour has been very well planned and there is no going back as far as the two boards are concerned. Very soon, the players will have to sign the tour contracts and they have to decide on their willingness, or otherwise, to go on the tour in a matter of days.
The second important factor that might be the remote cause of the reluctance of the Indian team to visit Pakistan at this stage is the way the bubble of confidence has burst in just the last week of the tour. There is no doubt that, on the whole, the Indian team performed remarkably well. They drew the Test series and was, in fact, considered the better of the two teams. They carried on the good work early in the tri-series to make the final easily.
However, in the last few days, the performance suddenly slumped, so much that the team was almost unrecognizable as the same one that had scored so heavily and given the world champions a real run for their money. The two finals saw India fare disastrously. They proved no match for Ricky Ponting’s men. The team that was cock-a-hoop with joy and confidence until a week ago and had looked upon the Pakistan team as easy rivals, now appears somewhat diffident.
Of course, injuries to so many leading players, especially the bowlers, has hit the team performance hard and India might still be struggling to put up a respectable bowling attack in the near future, what with question marks hanging against the names of Harbhajan Singh, Kumble, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar.
In sum total, the Indian team’s latest form is going to be the biggest hurdle for it to overcome. The question of security might just be used as an excuse to either cry off, or send a second-string team. It will then be the turn of the Pakistani Board to seek assurances on the strongest Indian side being sent or none at all.
