Short read: By treating cricket as war, India and Pakistan do the game a disservice

As the farce of India-Pakistan ‘cricket’ continues into the women’s world cup, Sandeep Dwivedi expresses the anguish of a true sport fan better than most in this op ed for the Indian Express. He begins by sharing the perspective of a cricketer who has actually been in war:

“An invaluable all-rounder of Don Bradman’s “Invincible” team of the late 1940s, Keith Miller once had to crash-land his fighter jet during World War II. Going to work in his Royal Australian Air Force fatigues before he donned the Baggy Green, Miller had seen death from close quarters while taking on the Germans in the skies.

During his second innings, in the middle of a tense Ashes tour, the straight-talking Aussie was once asked about the pressure of playing against arch-rivals England. Folklore has it that Miller gave an almighty scoff followed by these famous lines: “Pressure is a Messerschmitt (German fighter jet) up your a**e. Playing cricket is not.”

Probably the only man in history to have undertaken dangerous sorties and played top-level cricket, Miller underlined the ridiculousness of comparing brutal confrontations on a battlefield with the far more genteel and entertaining sporting face-offs.

But in this Asia Cup, which took place months after the mostly aerial conflict between India and Pakistan, cricketers, administrators and top politicians of the two nations have tried to merge these two worlds. They have overplayed cricket’s significance and symbolism.”

He goes on to add: “…when victory on a cricket field is less about celebrating your own success and more about being hurtful towards others, lines get crossed. When the stakes are so illogically high, watching cricket ceases to be a pleasurable pursuit and becomes a nerve-jangling ordeal.

It isn’t wise to allow the pride of a nation and its capability in safe-guarding its borders to be judged by the result of a cricket match. Sport is a great leveler and it has a habit of pulling down the over-confident and those who don’t respect its vagaries. Players need to guard their turf; they don’t need non-cricket actors setting the agenda for them.”

He then rightfully criticized the Indian captain for his arrogance:

“Suryakumar Yadav has broken a longstanding captain’s code. After his team’s second win in the tournament over Pakistan, he declared the end of cricket’s most storied rivalry. Without any provocation, he said that Pakistan was no longer a match for India. Even if statistics show that Indians win more often these days, captains as a rule don’t write off their rivals.

Far more competent batsmen and much more successful captains than Suryakumar — Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, M S Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma — have taken the dais after even grander wins over Pakistan, but none has shown this arrogance. Indian captains, historically, are known for their grace and quiet confidence in their teams; they never made such sweeping statements of superiority. They knew how to respect rivals and rivalry. Amidst the worst political tensions, they shook hands and kept the chatter to cricket.”

Finally, he ends by putting cricket and war in perspective: “In sport, at worst, a defeat means a heartbreak, tears shed into a towel soaked with sweat and a few days of social media trolling. Wars are grim affairs. Unlike in cricket, there is no DRS or second chance. Wars end in coffins reaching homes, orphans, widows and families taking a lifetime to deal with the loss. War offers real do-or-die situations, not the ones cricket writers allude to in their reports. Let’s not belittle the dogfights of military jets in the sky by comparing them to a bat-ball contest in the slog overs.”

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