I arrived well in advance for the crucial ICC Executive Board Meeting in Dubai and was able to button-hole Ray Mali, president of the South African Board, and Peter Chingoka, president of the Zimbabwe Board. They had learnt from press reports of the expected cancellation of the Afro-Asian Cup and felt aggrieved at the abrupt decision by the new Indian board. I told Mali and Chingoka that I had recently met Sharad Pawar and found him to be an extremely reasonable and understanding personality who had just taken over BCCI’s reins after an acrimonious election. Some knee-jerk decisions had ensued. I felt sure that the Afro-Asia Cup issue could be resolved amicably. The African representatives heard me out and seemed partially mollified. I then waited for Sharad Pawar to arrive at the hotel from the airport and immediately took him aside and gave him my impression of the lie of the land. We required seven votes in the board and needed African and West Indian support for our World Cup bid. Our presentation was almost certainly going to be found non-compliant leaving the field to Australia-New Zealand. I suggested that at the board meeting we plead for a brief extension on the grounds that India’s new board had recently taken over and had not been conveyed the documentation by the previous board for the proper compilation of the Asian bid. I suggested that Pawar hold informal meetings before the ICC Executive Board Meeting with the African heads to allay their misgivings and to convey to the West Indian president India’s willingness to financially support their preparations for the World Cup.
Sharad Pawar moved immediately to prepare the ground. I saw from the corner of my eye that he went up to Mali and Chingoka who were having coffee in the far corner of the hall and engaged them in deep conversation. The Afro-Asia Cup was to be continued as agreed and African misgivings allayed. Later that evening Sharad Pawar offered BCCI’s financial support to the West Indian Board. At the Executive Board meeting, Sharad Pawar made a persuasive plea to be allowed a brief extension. Australia and New Zealand had prepared a superb presentation but after all the Asian and African delegates had interceded, supporting India’s request for more time, the mood of the meeting enabled the Asians to delay their bid for a month. During this short break India, assisted by other Asian members, prepared a superb presentation that impressed everyone around the table.
During the January Executive Board Meeting the holding of a Twenty20 World Cup had been mooted. India and Pakistan had declined to take part on the grounds that they had practically no experience, indigenously, of Twenty20 cricket and could not contemplate entering a World Cup competition. Incidentally, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had pronounced themselves in favour. However, one month later Sharad Pawar and I decided to withdraw our objection, especially as South Africa was to host the championship. Our eventual support for the Twenty20 World Cup led to the firming up of African and West Indian commitment to Asia holding the World Cup in 2011, with Australia and New Zealand being allotted the 2015 World Cup.
This diplomatic exercise had led to India and Pakistan closely co-ordinating their strategy to gain the World Cup 2011. The tactics employed reminded me of the lobbying that prevailed in the United Nations and other international forums to secure a favourable vote. Fortunately we were successful but only by a whisker!
Subsequently, at the next Asian Council Meeting, I conveyed to Sharad Pawar that the presidency of the ACC was a ceremonial and not a substantive position. If he decided to opt for an extension, no one would oppose India but it would require a constitutional dispensation. India would also be seen by the smaller countries to be using steamrolling tactics. Without consulting his colleagues, Sharad Pawar announced that he would cede the ACC Presidency to Sri Lanka at the next election in six months’ time.
The sudden emergence of Twenty20 cricket has a rather strange backdrop as far as Pakistan and India are concerned. This new cricket phenomenon had been spearheaded by England where Twenty20 cricket had flourished for the past several years, filling county grounds with large crowds. Most other cricketing countries had favoured this obvious commercial bonanza by supporting Twenty20 programmes nationally. Pakistan had initiated one Twenty20 competition in 2OO5, while India had yet to organize its first Twenty20 competition. As already explained, when the ICC mooted its first international championship, both India and Pakistan initially declined to participate on the ground that their cricketers did not have sufficient experience of the format. It was ironical, therefore, that the two recalcitrant members eventually ended up finalists in the first World Cup, leading to a huge boost in the two countries for the Twenty20 format. Since then, India has organized a highly successful Twenty20 Indian Premier League which has given the Twenty20 syndrome in South Asia an emphatic boost. One of the beneficial off-shoots of IPL is that foreign players like Shoaib Akhtar, Andrew Symonds and Glen McGrath were treated like heroes in India, erasing the angst that existed between Indian, Pakistani and Australian players. My personal reservation regarding Twenty20 relates to the erosion of Test cricket’s importance. The commercial success of Twenty20 should be so channelled as not to undermine the supreme importance of Test Match contests.
Analysis and Conclusions
‘20,000 Indian fans visited Pakistan for the cricket series. You have sent back 20,000 Pakistani ambassadors to India.’ These were the words with which Shiv Shankar Menon, Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, described the cricket series to me in April 2004.
Earlier, in February 1999, 20,000 Indian fans had stayed on long after the Test Match in Chennai had ended to give the narrowly victorious Pakistani team a standing ovation as they went round the ground in a lap of honour. This welcome was unbelievable as only a fortnight earlier the extremist Shiv Sena had targeted the Pakistani team in a vitriolic campaign directed against them that saw the Delhi Test pitch dug up, a noisy demonstration against the Pakistan High Commission and threats to disrupt the tour. The late Mani Dixit, at one time my opposite number as foreign secretary, made the telling remark to me at the end of the tour: ‘Shaharyar, isn’t it a huge irony that it took the visit of a Pakistani cricket team to strengthen democracy in India?’ He was referring to the BJP government’s stringent opposition to Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray’s attempt to disrupt the tour.
During the four preceding decades, bilateral series between Pakistani and Indian teams had seen turgid, defensive cricket with sullen, angst-ridden crowds baying their support based on nationalistic fervour. In Ahmedabad Pakistani teams had fielded in helmets and in Karachi stands had been set on fire. The brilliant exploits of famous opposing players were received in cussed silence. Why and how did this atmosphere change at the turn of the century so that cricket began to serve as a pathway to peace, understanding and people-to-people friendship? This phenomenon deserves careful analysis.
As the title of Sir John Major’s famous book suggests, cricket is more than a game. It has the capacity to influence whole nations as was seen with Jardine’s Bodyline tour and the D’Oliviera affair that hastened the demise of Apartheid in South Africa. India-Pakistan series have similarly influenced public opinion in both countries.
In order to achieve this impact, it was necessary for cricket – a long and complex game – to move out of the elites’ grip. England was the first country that saw indigenous cricket matches played in a highly competitive, even passionate, atmosphere. The Roses matches, evoking the historic trans-Pennine rivalry, led to sell-out matches when Yorkshire and Lancashire played each other. Most players who participated in these titanic battles compared the contests with England-Australia Ashes matches. A story is told of a long-standing Yorkshire supporter who went to Headingley on the first morning of a Roses match telling his wife and fourteen-year-old son to join him later. After an hour’s play, a distraught and breathless son sought out his grim-faced father in the stands and said, ‘Father, father, I have terrible news. Mum’s run off with the butcher.’ ‘I have worse news for thee lad,’ replied the father. ‘utton’s out!’
In pre-independence India, it was the communal tournaments that first sparked public intere
st in a sport that was the exclusive preserve of the colonial masters and the privileged elite. Gradually the communal-based matches began to draw crowds, initially of around 2000 in the first quarter of the twentieth century then increasing to 10,000-20,000 in the 1930s. In 1944 the Hindus vs Mohammedans fixture drew a record crowd of over 40,000 at the Brabourne stadium. Cricket had come alive for the masses.
As the anti-colonial movement began to gain ground, there followed an intense controversy on the political correctness of communal tournaments. The Hindus were the most acutely affected as leaders of the Congress Party like Mahatma Gandhi vehemently opposed sporting tournaments based on religious lines. These opponents of communal matches were joined by Muslim, Parsi and Christian intellectuals who were in the forefront of the anti-imperialist movement. Their basic argument was that religion-based tournaments contradicted the united all-India movement for independence and were stoking the fires of communal tension. The ruling princes, who had willingly participated in the Quadrangular/Pentangulars in the mid-1930s, performed a volte-face by 1945 and supported a ban on the Pentangulars. Famous cricketing houses like Patiala, Nawanagar, Vizianagram and Baroda not only opposed the Pentangular but also banned their employees from participating in the tournament. Instead, the ruling princes urged players to participate in regional Ranji Trophy matches that were played before empty stands.
Those who favoured the Pentangular comprised the players, the sponsors who had much to gain financially and the cricketing public. For their own political reasons the Muslims, Parsis and Christians were also in favour of the communal tournaments. They referred to the actual experience of communal tournaments that allowed pentup tensions to be released. They pointed to the fact that sporting rivalry was a factor in drawing communities together and underlined their own experience that no incident had taken place between supporters or players, who always played with passion but were friends off the field. The most pertinent comment in favour of this stand was made in 1945 by Vijay Merchant, India’s most famous batsman, who stated, ‘Communal feeling between Hindus and Muslims is a product of politics not of sport. Cricket and communal series brought them closer together than any other aspect of life.’
Earlier C.K. Nayudu had stated that the cancellation of the Pentangular would lead to the funeral of Indian cricket.
Eventually the Pentangular was cancelled in 1947. In its place a much trumpeted star-studded regional Quadrangular was organized with Hindu, Muslim, Parsi and Christian superstars playing for each regional team. The tournament was a flop with no more than 10,000 cricket fans watching the matches without passion or commitment.
When India and Pakistan became independent the same arguments that were posed for and against the Pentangular were aired. After all were not India-Pakistan matches an extension of the Hindu-Muslim games that the Congress Party assiduously opposed? Would cricket improve or exacerbate relations between two independent neighbours? On one point, however, there was no room for argument. The communal-based Quadrangulars and Pentangulars had brought cricket to the general public in India. The Pentangulars were, therefore, the crucial spark that lit the flame of cricket for the masses in India.
Like two streams joining into a great river, cricket and politics cannot be separated. Yet, recalling Vijay Merchant’s prophetic words, it is politics not sport that exacerbates communal tensions. How far can cricket and cricketing ties between countries have a life of their own independent of the existing political climate? The ICC has attempted to separate cricket from politics like two parallel tracks and achieved success up to a point. Beyond that point, politics and sport have to merge, as was demonstrated by the recent Zimbabwe issue.
In the India-Pakistan syndrome, cricket and politics intertwined themselves at a relatively early point. Would cricket exacerbate the political tension that existed between the neighbours immediately after independence? Or would it lead to the first steps towards normalcy and harmony? Cricket matches, even though passionately contested in front of partisan crowds, could release tensions and improve relations, said one group. The opponents felt there was danger of a political blowout in the likely event of an incident on or off the field.
In its sixty-year history Pakistan has been dominated by the military dictatorships of Ayub, Zia and Musharraf. For much of the time, the government and the establishment exercised total control over the media with no alternate source of information. The government heavily influenced the attitudes of most Pakistanis through statecontrolled television and radio and the pliant print media, that was obliged to conform to government edicts. Most of these guidelines related to criticism of India, ranging from the vehement to the routine. Secular and more democratic India responded with equal venom towards Pakistan so that the atmosphere at the public level was laden with tension and invective against each other. Naturally, new generations were influenced by this mutual antipathy.
While Pakistan’s efforts to establish its newly found national status through sports was understandable, there was no attempt to give this impetus an Islamic colouring in cricketing matters by, for instance, excluding the minorities. The first Pakistan Cricket Board was presided over in 1948 by an eminent Christian, Justice Cornelius. A Parsi, K.R. Collector, was appointed its first secretary. In the first national squads that toured Ceylon and India, Behram Irani and R.N. Dinshaw, both Parsis, were included. Subsequently, minority representatives like Duncan Sharpe, Wallis Mathias, Antao D’Souza and Yousuf Youhana – all Christians – and Hindus Anil Dalpat and Danish Kaneria played Test Matches regularly for Pakistan. Yousuf Youhana’s decision to convert to Islam in 2005 was essentially a personal decision that had no association with his desire to conform to an ‘all Muslim’ national side.
Compared to India, Pakistan has a miniscule percentage of minorities and comparisons with the large number of Muslims selected for India are not really relevant. In fact, the kind of pressure that players like Abbas Ali Baig and Azharuddin faced from rightwing Hindu parties in India was never felt by non-Muslims playing for Pakistan.
Yousuf Youhana was appointed vice-captain to Inzamam-ul- Haq as a Christian and captained Pakistan on several occasions when Inzamam was absent. Ironically, he was appointed captain as a Muslim in September 2006 only to be abruptly replaced by Younus Khan immediately after the new chairman had taken over.
As regards Muslim players representing India, except for the lunatic fringe, Pakistanis generally accepted Muslim players like Azharuddin, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan and Mohammad Kaif as normal and worthy opponents. Even the relatively uneducated components of the crowds did not taunt these players for ‘betraying’ Islamic Pakistan in favour of India. When the venerable mufti of the Baroda Jama Masjid and his Swat-born wife – Irfan Pathan’s parents – twice visited Pakistan for the India-Pakistan series, they were universally welcomed as Indian supporters.
In the early days, three cricket tours were gingerly arranged before the 1965 and 1971 wars put an end to those contests. These tours produced defensive, negative cricket that did not help in easing bilateral tensions, even though cricket fans were eager to watch the stars of each team. Bilateral tours were resumed in 1978 but by then the atmosphere had deteriorated to the point that the teams and crowds were overly nationalistic and treated matches like pitched battles. Three wars and the loss of East Pakistan had filled the Pakistani psyche with bitterness and anger which were reflected in the surreal atmosphere of the cricket matches. Politics and cricket were not separate but part of a whole. This was the era of helmets on the field and rioting crowds.
However, during the 1980s and 1990s cricket in South Asia achieved unprecedented mass appeal. The initial stirrings of cricket away from its elite status have to be traced back to the communal tournaments. The next step was television coverage that was increasingly available to the common man. The final megaboost came with India winning the World Cup in 1983, Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996. These successes saw public support for cricket in South Asia reach stellar proportio
ns. Cricket had reached every household in South Asia and even housewives, grandmothers, donkey cart drivers and fruit vendors knew Sachin Tendulkar’s score or Shoaib Akhtar’s wicket count. Girls began to play cricket and women’s teams sprang up in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and then Bangladesh to follow India’s long standing example.
With its mass following and cricket’s capacity to influence national and public opinion, it was evident that cricket series between India and Pakistan could cut both ways. In the first four decades after Independence these series had left behind a bitter taste mainly because successive governments on both sides of the frontier had stoked the embers of mutual fears and hostility. Cricket became defensive, nationalistic and sullen.
A major responsibility for creating the right atmosphere for cricket matches rests with the captain. In cricket a captain’s influence goes deeper than in any other sport. He is the general who plans the team’s strategy and even leads the social side by making speeches and interacting with opposing captains, umpires and officials. The captain’s role with the media is also crucial.
Pakistan had two outstanding captains, Hafeez Kardar and Imran Khan, who were superb leaders of men and knew their cricket thoroughly. Kardar’s success was phenomenal, winning his first Test at Lucknow in Pakistan’s first series. He then went on to defeat England at the Oval in 1954, squaring Pakistan’s first series in England. Later, Ian Johnson’s Australians were beaten in Karachi on their way home from England. On all those occasions Fazal Mahmood was the architect of Pakistan’s victories. Imran Khan was an outstanding cricketer and during his captaincy Pakistan won the World Cup and bilateral series played in England and in India.
Shadows Across the Playing Field Page 16