Cricket with Pakistan

Very compelling reasons exist to argue that India must play Pakistan in bilateral cricket series. The foremost reason is that the extremists of the two nations don’t wish the two teams to play each other; these extremists must be resisted by the moderate, peace-promoting people of the two countries. Playing cricket is an excellent way to isolate these extremists and make them irrelevant. When the ordinary people of the two countries meet, they realise that they’re not very different from each other — people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan must be encouraged. Cricket is the most effective method of promoting mass contact among the people of the two countries.

These are the reasons we must play Pakistan. But there are reasons to be prudent and not jump headlong into a cricket tour. First, it's clear that economic reasons are the greatest motivator behind the campaign to restart the cricket. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) signed a memorandum of understanding to play several bilateral cricket series, not for the noble purpose of peace and harmony. The MoU was the BCCI’s sop to the PCB in order to gain its support on an International Cricket Council vote last year. Then, the efficacy of cricket in bridge-building among nations in conflict is very doubtful. Merely five years after the Kargil war, we had a wonderful, heart-warming tour of Pakistan, in 2004. Three more bilateral series followed, in 2005, 2006 and 2007. They created a lot of goodwill among the people who visited the country of the supposed “enemy”. However, this goodwill is rather brittle — it breaks into pieces when there is a terrorist strike or cross-border firing between the troops. 

Finally, the current atmosphere of distrust between the two countries doesn't make for an ideal environment for cricket. This is certain to turn the cricket contests into a substitute for war. The players, thus, are put in a very difficult position — they are expected to be wonderful ambassadors of peace, but they are also expected to win at any cost. Defeat turns them into national villains. This is just not fair.