Sportspersons should never be expected to carry the weight of what happened five months ago, and they should not be required to do the bidding of their governments on a cricket field.
Around three years ago, Shaheen Shah Afridi sat on the periphery of an ICC Academy training ground in Dubai when the Indian team arrived at the venue. The images that followed would warm billions of hearts around the world.
Shaheen’s right-leg was in a brace, a consequence of an ill-fated dive in Galle, Sri Lanka, that ruled him out of cricket for four months. He helped himself off the ground as Yuzvendra Chahal approached to meet him. Chahal enquired about Shaheen’s injury.
The Pakistani fast bowler detailed the timeline of his full recovery and the incident to the leg-spinner, before wishing him luck for the contest against Pakistan.
Virat Kohli had been posing for a picture with a net bowler a few yards away from the two. He came up to Shaheen and the two shook hands. Kohli wore a worried look as Shaheen revealed to him what he had earlier explained to Chahal.
This made a beautiful image. Their battle was going to be the spiciest subplot of the 2022 India-Pakistan Asia Cup contest, but in this moment, the rivalry had taken a backseat, with empathy at the forefront.
Rishab Pant and KL Rahul met Shaheen next. The players exchanged jokes, and Shaheen signed off each interaction by wishing them luck for the match against his country. He told Pant that he would be in the crowd to watch the match.
Cricket needed this bonhomie as the ever-increasing friction between the two neighbours continued to create an environment of hate and distrust.
Earlier that year, India and Pakistan players converged outside the dressing rooms after their women’s World Cup match in Tauranga, New Zealand. The shared culture, language, and interests pull people from the two countries towards each other. But, on this occasion, the force was even stronger.
One-by-one, the Indian players gathered around Bismah Maroof, who had her newborn, Fatima, in her arms. While a bunch near Bismah continued the best of their efforts to evoke a reaction from baby Fatima, the others casually conversed with their Pakistani counterparts in the Pakistan dressing room.
Now, though, the environment has changed. Drastically.
Sports vs politics
Last week, the men’s sides of Pakistan and India were back at the ICC Academy’s training facilities eight days out of their scheduled group-stage contest. Pakistan were giving themselves final touches before the tri-series final against Afghanistan the next day and India were having their first training session after arriving in Dubai for the Asia Cup.
The players, overly cautious about the perimeters this time, remained in their designated zones to make sure there were no interactions. The upcoming India-Pakistan contest on Sep 14 comes amid the most tense geopolitical climate in recent times. There have been calls in India for the boycott of the Asia Cup match(es) against Pakistan and Indian right-wing accounts on X have already started to censure Indian players. Any friendly advance towards a player from the other team has all the potential to be viewed as treason to his country.
Sportspersons should never be expected to carry the weight of what happened five months ago, and they should not be required to do the bidding of their governments on a cricket field.
The joint press conference of the eight captains on the opening day of the Asia Cup was the first instance that the captains of India and Pakistan were in close proximity. Social media was ablaze with posts about the body languages of the two. The posts made one wonder whether it was a curtain raiser of a sporting event or a conclave of heads of states in the aftermath of a military conflict. My mind took me back to the recent post-Alaska summit press conference of the US and Russian presidents that I had stayed up to watch in my best attempt to read between the lines.
Aware, or respectful, of the charged emotions of the fans back home, Salman Ali Agha and Suryakumar Yadav avoided eye-contact despite being just a few meters away. In what was perhaps the coldest of interactions between the captains of the two teams in recent times, they had a brief handshake off stage, with no smiles or eye-contact to accompany it. It was just a tick-box exercise.
Each India-Pakistan game carries a ridiculous load on a player from either side. There are unimaginable levels of expectations that can crumble any sportsperson. We enjoy these contests because of the weight of the political rivalry that they carry. But it should not be overdone, and the last thing these players need right now is the detailed introspection of how they behave in each other’s company.
But, these are sad times.
Sunday’s contest will be treated as an extension of May’s military conflict as the players will be deemed to be fighting to protect the honour and integrity of their nations, instead of the two points needed to secure qualification for the next round. The members of the winning team will be put on a pedestal, and those on the losing side will be degraded on social media.
As a former media manager of Pakistan’s men’s and women’s sides, I have seen the admiration the players from both sides have for each other.
When Babar Azam waited for the plane to take him back to Hyderabad after the captains’ day for the 2023 ODI World Cup in Ahmedabad, Rohit Sharma, after being made aware that the Pakistan captain sat in one of the VIP lounges, came to meet him. The Indian captain, who had to travel to Chennai, was comfortable sharing the lounge with Babar, and the two talked with each other about their families, the sport, and the food in India.
The calm of the Pallekele dressing room was punctuated by laughter during the rain break of the India-Pakistan group-stage Asia Cup match in 2023 as India’s Kohli and the Punjabi-origin Pakistan players took jibes at each other.
When the news of Pant’s life-threatening car accident broke out, the Pakistan players were shaken by horror, and the Karachi dressing room went quiet. Pakistan were playing New Zealand in a Test match at the National Stadium. They enquired from each other whether anyone had more information about the Indian player in the hope that they would get to compete against him again.
In Christchurch, New Zealand, before India and Pakistan flew to Tauranga for their World Cup match, Pakistan and Indian players would often have long conversations when they ran into each other at local Indian restaurants. And, when India’s Smriti Mandhana was told by the liaison officer that her missing bag might have been placed in the Pakistan team room by the hotel staff, the Pakistan players sifted through the luggage to help the Indian batter find hers.
That’s what cricket should ever be all about.