‘Just not cricket,’ as the saying goes

Competitive sports are thought to build character. In addition, some sporting disciplines have a discreet charm, an overlay of genteel conventions. Cricket is one such — it’s the proverbial ‘gentleman’s game’, a label that originates as much from its upper-class antecedents as the emphasis on sportsmanship, respect and fair play that came to be associated with it.

Cricket in England, where the game was invented, evolved into a competition for the nobility and the educated classes. Dr W.G. Grace, for example, a father figure in cricket, was a medical practitioner. Peers would captain England. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in London controlled cricket for 200 years, from 1788 to 1989.

The MCC laid down the laws of cricket. It also set down the rules of fair play and values underpinning the game, including what the preamble to the MCC manual called the ‘Spirit of Cricket’, urging players to not just follow the rules but hold themselves to a higher standard of conduct that fosters respect for opponents, teammates, umpires and the game’s heritage. It is this character that inspired Sir Neville Cardus, a doyen of cricket writers, to say it was ‘not merely a game, but a way of life’!

In time, politics came to govern whether a country plays another. While white nations, such as England, Australia and New Zealand, maintained cricketing relations with South Africa even in the days of apartheid, the non-white world, inspired by Nehruvian India, did not — until Pretoria, the country’s executive capital, adopted multiracial equality as official policy. While the world was divided on the issue, developing nations admired India’s stance. India even sacrificed a Davis Cup final in tennis against South Africa in 1974 to stick to its position.

Cut to tensions between India and Pakistan. The last bilateral Test series was in 2006–07, the last limited overs series in 2012–13. No bilaterals since 2014, when the BJP came back to power in India under Modi; Pakistan did show up, though, for ICC (International Cricket Council) commitments in limited overs tournaments.

Following India’s refusal earlier this year to play ICC Champions Trophy matches in Pakistan, the Pakistan Cricket Board has threatened not to come to India for upcoming ICC events.

The Asia Cup is an ICC-approved tournament, held under the aegis of the Asian Cricket Council. Purists see it as a money-spinner rather than an important part of the cricket calendar. But if it must take place, one expects the game will not be brought into disrepute.

The run-up to the ongoing Asia Cup (9–28 September) was politically sensitive. India and Pakistan were at war in May, after the terror attack in Pahalgam on 22 April. Even before Pahalgam, Pakistan allegedly forayed into Indian military installations in Pathankot and Uri in 2016 and was accused of sponsoring a suicide bomber strike that killed dozens of Indian paramilitary personnel in Pulwama in 2019.

Diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan were downgraded in 2019 with the withdrawal of high commissioners. Direct trade ties were frozen the same year. After Pahalgam, India announced that it was keeping in abeyance the nearly 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty (IWT). Let’s just say bilateral relations have never been worse.

Prime Minister Modi has been heard saying that Operation Sindoor, India’s retaliatory strike after Pahalgam, is “not over”. Senior defence personnel have been heard reiterating this position. How, then, was it acceptable to greenlight India’s match against Pakistan? Did a neutral venue make all the difference? Or was the lure of the lucre at stake too much to ignore for the BJP-dominated BCCI?

Other uncomfortable questions linger.

How does the decision to send the team and allow it to play Pakistan square with Modi’s fiery rhetoric about “blood and water can’t flow at the same time” while justifying the IWT decision?

Did the fact that Jay Shah, son of Union home minister Amit Shah, heads the ICC, tip the scales in favour of India’s participation? Or, if politics and sports are to be kept apart — clearly not — why stage the unsportsmanlike charade of no handshakes, such an integral part of ‘the spirit of cricket’? Why use cricketers as pawns in your political game?

Whatever the twisted logic, the balancing act seems to have gone terribly wrong. It seems the powers that be realised, a bit belatedly, that even India’s fanatical cricket lovers, who will give an arm and a leg to watch India play Pakistan, were edgy about the duplicity of the decision to send the team even while spewing bile about Pakistan. The no-handshake improvisation was possibly a political damage-limitation exercise.

To the government, or the BCCI or India’s cricket establishment, it didn’t seem to matter that the Indian team, and their captain Suryakumar Yadav, were made to look so petty, so small in their victory.

Views are personal.

Ashis Ray can be reached on X @ashiscray