Shadows Across the Playing Field

by Shashi Tharoor

However, Zia-ul-Haq was the first leader to use a cricket match to defuse tension, that had built up after India’s Brass Tacks military exercise along the Pakistan border. Zia invited himself to the Test match in Jaipur and an informal chat with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi diffused the high tension along the frontier.

  The series continued, however, to be played before angstridden crowds and in Ahmedabad play was halted for 50 minutes as spectators threw stones and bottles at Pakistani fielders. After tea, Pakistani fielders in the out-field wore helmets! The last match in Bangalore was a classic. Played on a spinner’s wicket, Gavaskar nearly carried the day in a masterly innings but India lost by 16 runs, to widespread gloom around the ground. There were no magnanimous gestures from the spectators at Pakistan’s first series win in India.

  Zia died in a mysterious air-crash in 1988 and was succeeded by Benazir Bhutto who won the election later the same year on the crest of a popular wave. She and Rajiv Gandhi met amid rising expectations of better relations but the next Test series in 1989- 90 was to be the last for ten years. The Indians visited Pakistan in another dull and acrimonious series in which there was more crowd trouble, notably at Sialkot. All four Tests were drawn. At Imran’s insistence two neutral umpires supervised the Tests. Soon afterwards, Kashmir was in flames again with violent accusations from India of Pakistan’s involvement in the unrest. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated shortly afterwards and high tension between the two countries led to another long break in cricketing relations.

  By this time Pakistan had achieved equality with India in the major sports. In squash Pakistan’s dominance over the world was complete. In hockey Pakistan had dethroned India and won the 1960 Rome Olympics, repeating the win in Mexico 1968. Even in the minor sports like athletics, wrestling and boxing, Pakistan achieved better performances than India at the Olympic, Asian and Commonwealth Games. Only in tennis and golf was India ahead of Pakistan in the sporting field. Mushtaq Mohammad, Majid Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Sarfraz Nawaz, Javed Miandad, Asif Iqbal and Imran Khan, all of whom played English County cricket, were lifting Pakistan to a higher status than India whose cricketers were not so internationally prominent, though Gavaskar, Gupte and Kapil Dev were supremely talented. These sporting achievements gave the Pakistani public a psychological boost. They felt that Pakistani sportsmen could match their Indian counterparts. Pakistan need not fear the shadow of Indian domination.

  This period also coincided with cricket becoming a sport with a mass following, assisted initially by radio and then by TV. In the early days, radio broadcasts played a pioneering role in promoting cricket’s appeal to the masses. Much later, television took on this role in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In the mid-40s, I recall listening to famous radio commentators like John Arlott, Alan McGilvray and Rex Alston, describing Test matches in England and Australia across the crackling airwaves. In India, the gravelly voice of A.F.S. Talyarkhan, speaking in English, took the game to the public. In Pakistan, the cultured tones of Jamsheed Marker and Omar Kureishi became household names. Even after television took on the baton, camel-cart drivers, small shopkeepers and government babus in their offices could be seen listening to the English commentaries of AFST, Jamsheed Marker and Omar Kureishi in a language they could scarcely understand.

  Urdu and Hindi commentaries followed later when it became apparent that cricket had reached the common man deep in the interior. The advent of television saw a fresh set of household names like Richie Benaud, Jim Laker, Geoff Boycott, Ravi Shastri, Michael Holding and Ramiz Raja taking on the mantle from the radio specialists. There was no doubt however, that the initial popularizing of the game came from the radio commentators with their exceptionally knowledgeable, witty and highly descriptive accounts of cricketing contests.

  By the late 1980s, thanks to television reaching the furthest corners of the land, the elite’s hold on cricket in both countries – indeed in the whole of South Asia – had been effectively unshackled. The complex game of cricket was now being played by the underprivileged in any space they could find. In Islamabad children of civil servants played with minibats and tennis balls in their garage pathways with domestic servants acting as out fielders. Militiamen based in temporary tents to protect diplomats could be seen playing in open spaces. On Sunday mornings outside Lahore airport several hundred cricketers would play on open maidans overlapping into each other’s territory so that long leg in one game would stand next to gully in the other. The strangest sight was the little boys in the madrassahs with their skull caps, who in their breaks would invariably prefer to play cricket until their prefects or teachers herded them away from the ‘western’ game to the more acceptable volleyball or football. Television and radio had brought cricket to the masses. Cricket was everyone’s preference from the rickshaw driver to the chief executive, rich or poor, east or west, north or south. Suddenly cricket had overwhelmed society in both countries. Apart from Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a distant icon for the new generation, cricket was the only uniting force in Pakistan.

  From time to time Pakistani and Indian players have been accused of match fixing. Some players like Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja have been found guilty and punished. In Pakistan, Justice Qayyum investigated these accusations and found one player, Salim Malik, guilty while others were held complicit in varying degrees. The match-fixing phenomenon really hit the headlines when the South African captain, Hansie Cronje, admitted to a fix. The reason for international focus on subcontinental players is that the betting mafia is known to operate from India, with acolytes in Pakistan and UAE. In western countries, betting has, to some extent, been regulated through authorized betting shops. Match fixing has since been brought under control by ICC’s anti-corruption unit which has been efficient and effective. Draconian punishments are envisaged for any cricketer indulging in betting so that match-fixing scandals have now virtually evaporated.

  The issue of ball tampering is as old as the hills. The cricket ball has been tampered with ever since Fuller Pilch and John Nyren began playing cricket on the greens of Hambledon. As cricket developed, especially the decision to cover pitches, the need to ‘doctor’ the cricket ball increased. Lever used hair cream and Trescothick has referred to sweets that provide ‘shine inducing’ saliva. Perhaps the Pakistani bowlers – Sarfraz Nawaz, Waqar Younus, Imran Khan and Wasim Akram – were the pioneers of reverse swing which required the roughing up of one side of the ball and shining the other. Attempting this condition on the ball is now regarded as legitimate except by overt mechanical means such as by using extended fingernails. Brett Lee, after he had achieved enormous swing to win a recent match, stated publicly that all his teammates had helped to work on the ball to aid reverse swing!

  During the approximately ten years that saw political tension prevent the scheduling of bilateral series, Indo-Pakistan rivalry was played out in Asia Cups, World Cups, Champions’ Trophy and regular tournaments held in Sharjah, Canada and Morocco. These were organized mainly through the initiative of Abdur Rahman Bukhatir, an entrepreneur and cricket fan from Sharjah, who had been a student in South Asia. The matches filled the vacuum for Pakistani and Indian fans, who were denied the chance to watch the exciting combat between the new generation of players in their own countries. Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Srinath, Laxman had hardly played a bilateral series against Pakistan, nor had Wasim Akram, Waqar Younus, Shoaib Akhtar, Abdul Qadir, Abdul Razzaq or Saqlain Mushtaq. Bukhatir who owned Ten Sports was able to raise funds for the off-shore matches through lucrative television coverage which he utilized to induce player participation and benefits for retired cricket stars.

  To begin with, the enterprise succeeded, as viewers in Pakistan and India could see the clash of the titans off-shore. Other entrepreneurs jumped on to the bandwagon, offered lucrative terms for the players and boards, and scheduled matches in Canada, Abu Dhabi and Morocco. These series took the form of bilateral and trilateral matches with Sri Lanka, Australia, West Indies and England joining in for the fun and money. What
ever the format, India-Pakistan matches were the draw-cards and saw full houses of expatriates supporting their teams. After some time, the ICC gave its approval to these off-shore series, appointing umpires and other officials for the matches.

  In the early matches at Sharjah, the series ended up fairly even, enlivened by occasional gems like Miandad’s six off the last ball. The needle of a bilateral contest was missing and there was generally a relaxed, carnival atmosphere at the Sharjah matches. After a few years there were rumours of betting and match-fixing that eventually led to ICC withdrawing its patronage of the off-shore series. Towards the end of the series, Pakistan began to win more regularly, leading to Indian accusations of bias by the Sharjah organizers in the appointment of umpires, preparation of pitches and promoting an Islamic atmosphere that favoured Pakistan. India then declined to participate and, as ICC had withdrawn its patronage, these offshore matches soon withered on the vine, as no-one was interested in Pakistan playing Sri Lanka or the West Indies.

  Personally I did not give much weight to these off-shore carnivals because of the lack of competitiveness between the teams and the negative influences that surrounded the series. True, the matches filled a vacuum for cricket fans, meant money for the boys and established a favourable atmosphere between players in both teams but as cricket contests, they did not have the cutting edge of a bilateral series.

  Diplomacy and Bridge-building

  In May 1998 India exploded a nuclear device at Pokhran. Three weeks later Pakistan followed suit in Chagai. Tension over Siachen, Sir Creek, and accusations and counter-accusations of cross-border terrorism and grave human rights persecution in Kashmir saw political relations between the two countries plummet to dangerous levels. The May 1998 nuclear explosions led to a qualitative change in the relationship between the two states. The escalating confrontation had a new dimension from the days when conflict was seen, as in 1965 and 1971, in conventional military terms. Both countries realized the need to bring temperatures down. Cricket provided the first step in that direction.

  In January 1999, only six months after the nuclear explosions, Pakistan agreed to resume its bilateral series against India that had been suspended for ten years. At the eleventh hour, I was appointed manager of the Pakistan team, obviously because of my diplomatic experience. The tour aimed at establishing equable relations between the two countries against the backdrop of acute tension. It would also serve as barometer of public opinion, especially the common man.

  Before the tour began, the prospects were discouraging. The right-wing Shiv Sena announced a hostile boycott of the tour, its leader Bal Thackeray pouring out threatening invective against the visit of the Pakistan team. Shiv Sena workers dug up the Delhi pitch, they attacked BCCI offices in Mumbai and mounted a noisy demonstration outside the Pakistani Embassy in New Delhi. The tour hung by a slender thread when we gathered at Lahore airport and I met the team for the first time, captained by my old friend Wasim Akram and coached by Javed Miandad. At the airport, I could see tension writ all over the players’ faces before we took the forty-minute flight to Delhi. Before our departure Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had given me the responsibility of achieving optimum public relations benefit but had also told me that I could make the decision to abort the tour if necessary.

  On arrival at Delhi airport, Indian security took over with supreme efficiency. No immigration or passport checks were made while we disembarked at a distant corner of the tarmac and were herded into one of two identical buses, one of which already had green-blazered security personnel sitting in it. I soon realized that the second bus was a dummy that would take the normal route into town while we would make our way surreptitiously through the back streets to our hotel. The game was on, with the establishment against the marauding agitators who had even threatened to let loose poisonous snakes into the Pakistan dressing rooms!

  On arrival at the hotel, we were herded into a cavernous hall for our first press conference in front of nearly 300 eager press and media representatives. I realized this was a defining moment of the tour and putting on my diplomatic hat, I launched into the briefing. The Pakistan cricket team had come to the home of a great cricketing tradition – dating back to the greats like Ranjitsinhji, C.K. Nayudu, Amar Singh, Vijay Merchant, Amarnath and Vinoo Mankad leading up to today’s stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid. We would play the game in its best sporting tradition. Winning and losing were part of the game and no excuses would be made for losing. We relied on the hospitality and sportsmanship of Indian spectators. We would play positive cricket and would not seek security first by playing defensively. No excuses over weather, umpiring or pitches would be made. They were all part of the game. Above all we had come to play cricket not politics.

  The briefing went down well and we repaired to our rooms, reassured by the tight security and the positive response at the press conference. A few hours later Home Minister L.K. Advani visited the team. He had come straight from Mumbai where he had obtained an assurance from Bal Thackeray not to disrupt the tour. Advani welcomed the team and assured them of full security.

  In the days that followed three events stood out – the first at Gwalior, the second at Chennai (Madras) and the third at Mohali which provided a barometer reading of genuine public response to the Pakistani team.

  At Gwalior, we played a warm-up side match which, by mutual consent, finished at tea on the last day so that the team could catch an early flight to Chennai. We therefore moved from the stadium directly to the airport. To my great surprise, I found the road from the stadium to the airport lined four rows deep on both sides with ordinary folk who had waited in the hot sun for hours to wave farewell to the visiting Pakistan team. After forty years in government I had come to recognize a sponsored crowd – or rent-a-crowd – from a genuine, spontaneous gathering. Sponsored crowds are provided by government organizations, for instance, to greet visiting heads of states, carrying the country’s flags and welcoming the visitor with banners like ‘Pak-Czech dosti zindabad’. A crowd would be ‘produced’ by a sitting member of parliament in his constituency for a visiting prime minister. The people who lined the airport road in Gwalior were totally spontaneous. They were students, shopkeepers, sweepers, rickshaw drivers, fruit merchants and housewives. I tried unsuccessfully to impress on my team the significance of a Gwalior crowd turning out in such large numbers to greet the Pakistani team because Gwalior had traditionally been the bastion of extremist political forces. It was from Gwalior that Nathuram Godse had hatched his conspiracy to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi.

  Chennai was the most exciting Test Match I had ever witnessed. After a ding-dong contest Pakistan won by 12 runs when an hour earlier Sachin Tendulkar had brought India to the edge of victory. The Pakistan team was deliriously happy but despite the disappointment of losing, the Chennai crowd of about 20,000 stayed on in the stands to witness the post-match awards and applaud the winners. The team then went on a victory round of the stadium and were given a standing ovation by the Chennai crowd. This was the turning point of the tour – an absorbing Test match fought out to the wire and the home crowd, sportingly and magnanimously, giving the victorious visitors a standing ovation! My son in Islamabad rang me in Chennai and remarked that while congratulations were in order the crowd response was unbelievable!

  Something had changed in crowd attitudes. Only a few years earlier a Bangalore crowd had whistled and screamed invectives at Saeed Anwar and Aamer Sohail in an ICC Trophy match and Pakistan boundaries were received in pin-drop silence. The same sullen attitude was true when Indian teams played in Pakistan. I recall being acutely embarrassed when Sachin Tendulkar’s brilliant stroke play evoked no appreciation from the spectators. It seemed only winning mattered and not the skill and art of cricket.

  But now, during the 1999 tour, a certain maturity from the crowds witnessing India-Pak contests was apparent. Good performances were appreciated without bias. The teams interacted sportingly on the field and even the crowd troubl
e after Tendulkar’s run-out at Kolkata was not aimed against the Pakistani team but was essentially a show of frustration.

  Then, at Mohali, 10,000 Pakistani fans crossed the border into Indian Punjab to watch the ODI, the only time that a heavy contingent of Pakistani fans had gathered at an Indian stadium during the tour. The hospitality shown to the Pakistani fans was memorable. Spontaneous discounts were given by shopkeepers, taxi drivers and hoteliers. The chief minister organized a free film show for the Bollywood starved Pakistanis and a separate enclosure was reserved for the Pakistani fans who were invited to a free dinner by the Punjab government. At the end of the game, which Pakistan won, there was no triumphant gloating from the Pakistanis but fans from both sides calling out for friendship between Pakistan and India. These images left a deep imprint on my mind and I drew from this experience when the Indian team visited Pakistan in 2004 after a gap of fifteen years.

  The huge diplomatic and public relations success of the 1999 tour paved the way for the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to take his famous bus ride to Lahore where he made his memorable speech at the Minar-e-Pakistan. Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif then signed the Lahore Declaration. A cricket fan writing in a daily newspaper stated that normally cricket series follow in the wake of improved bilateral political relations. This time cricket diplomacy had paved the way for peace between neighbours! Cricket has the capacity to act as a weathervane of national feelings. The winds of change could certainly be seen in Chennai, Gwalior, Mohali and Lahore.

  India in Pakistan 2004

  Immediately after the euphoric Lahore Declaration, the Pakistan army under General Pervez Musharraf mounted an operation in Kargil that dissipated all the goodwill that had been gained in Lahore. For Pakistan, the Kargil operation was a military and diplomatic disaster, as it was branded the aggressor and the perpetrator of cross-border religious extremism. Nawaz Sharif had to dash to the White House for Clinton to get Pakistan off the hook. Kargil ended for Pakistan in shame and disaster. Soon General Musharraf mounted a coup against Nawaz, declared Martial Law and suspended the Constitution. Vajpayee felt deeply aggrieved and betrayed by Pakistan, which was seen to have stabbed in the back the only Indian politician who was prepared to go the extra mile to find a settlement of Kashmir.