In his much-quoted essay The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell wrote, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting.” Over the years, an India-Pakistan cricket match has been characterised as war minus the shooting, but seldom by the players, and rarely manifested on the field of play.
When cricket relations resumed after 17 years and India toured Pakistan in 1978, the teams were led by Bishan Bedi and Mushtaq Mohammed, two contemporary greats who played together for Northamptonshire in England. They were firm friends. Yet even in that atmosphere, Cambridge-educated Majid Khan was quoted as saying, “Pakistan is ready for a 1,000-year war with India”. Those days there was no PR machinery that rushed to the aid of players to translate their plain English into palatable prose. No one attempted to interpret that to explain Majid meant “cricket war”, since sports contests were seen as proxies for war.
Warm hospitality
Over the years, journalists from either country have returned to their own with stories of the warm reception they received and the generosity of their hosts. On the 1989-90 tour of Pakistan, when I expressed a desire to visit Mohenjo-daro, I was flown there as a guest, provided with a guide, and taken around. Perhaps the guide was a security person to ensure I didn’t do anything his bosses wouldn’t approve of. No matter, since my interest was historical, not political. On most tours, writers came back with stories of stores refusing to accept money if they bought anything.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light, of course. In Faisalabad on that 1989-90 tour, there were megaphone-wielding speakers urging the public to come to the stadium and disrupt the matches. In Karachi, a one-dayer had to be called off owing to crowd disturbances.
But the sound and fury was orchestrated mainly by those around the matches rather than the players themselves, who were, and continue to be, friends.
And this is where the texture of this Asia Cup has been different. For one, the stadium hasn’t been packed as usual, and it is the players (goaded by their administration) who have taken the lead in keeping the hostility alive, justified or not. The refusal to shake hands or to be seen fraternising with the opposition out of respect for those who fell in Pahalgam and in support of India’s soldiers means that cricket has been forced to behave out of character because politicians don’t want to make the tough decisions. This is in contrast to times when cricket was forced to play the role of peace missions and diplomacy. Cricket for Peace was the motto then.
Politics minus the war
At the Asia Cup, we are witnessing politics minus the war. Perhaps this is better than war thanks to politics. A Sahibzada Farhan pointing his bat like a gun in celebration of a half-century is a better alternative to actual guns pointed at anyone. Mock battles on the cricket field — however ugly they look and however unnecessary — are better than real action on the battlefield where lives, rather than cricket matches are lost.
The Indian team has shown greater maturity (apart from greater skill) by limiting their response to the kind of off-field sledging skipper Suryakumar Yadav indulged in when he said, “Stop calling India-Pakistan matches a rivalry…it’s a no-contest.” He must hope his words don’t come back to bite him at the end of the tournament.
If Pakistan make it to the final, and play India, the temptation to go one-up on the other might be strong. If the response to a handshake not given is a bat pointed like a gun or miming a plane being shot down (this, by Haris Rauf), will the Indian team be practising their mimes to make a point? The notion that sport stands for something beyond itself implies something positive — hope, peace, love — rather than the opposite. It is after all we who paint it in the colours we want.
Someday, an India-Pakistan cricket match will be a boring affair, with nothing memorable on field or off. Just another match, as players sometimes say. But when?
Published – September 24, 2025 12:30 am IST
