Diminishing the sport

There is something very disquieting and even disgusting to watch sportspersons indulging in venomous theatrics on the playing field to score political brownie points. Over the many decades of watching and reporting on cricket, and that includes many visits to Pakistan, one has been witness to crowds behaving like battlefield warriors, holding on to their national identities with words dipped in hateful poison. Never has one seen players become the crowd and express loyalties in a manner that go beyond the definition of sport and its well-defined code of ethics.

We understand the anger of a nation, we understand that players are not robots and are human just like you and me. They too have feelings and their love for their country is second to none. You can extend this argument to say that what wrong have Suryakumar Yadav and his talented bunch done by not shaking hands with their rivals Pakistan, by dedicating wins to Pahalgam victims and the Indian Army, and by refusing to accept the Asia Cup trophy from the Asian Cricket Council president who also happens to be Pakistan’s interior minister?

In response to the Prime Minister’s tweet immediately after the final win — “#OperationSindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same — India wins. Congrats to our cricketers” — Yadav responded with equal vigour and enthusiasm. He was quoted by ANI as saying: “It feels good when the country’s leader himself bats on the front foot; it felt like he took the strike and scored runs…”

With the whole country behind him, as Yadav puts it, why should any Indian have a problem with the team’s off-field antics? They are champions on it and off it also. The Indian captain has no problem with a cricket match being equated with a war where human beings get killed, where bodies float with tragic consequences for the dead and even the living. He has no problem with even playing with the “enemy” because he believes he can beat them. In his view of the world, a cricket field becomes an extension of the battlefield and bat and ball the tools, just like guns and bombs, for destroying the foes.

Once victory is achieved, is it the prerogative of the winning team to decide from whom to accept the trophy? Has sports witnessed such defiance of laid-out protocols, especially cricket?

The world of sports has a history of protests over many issues. Teams have boycotted events like the Olympics and cricket itself has seen countries concede matches against teams they did not want to play. In 1996, England, West Indies and Australia conceded their matches and points against Sri Lanka in that country due to security issues. In the 2003 World Cup, England and Australia refused to play Zimbabwe in Harare in protest against Mugabe’s anti-white policies. All cricket-playing nations refused to play South Africa due to Apartheid policies from 1970 to 1991. The Indian men’s tennis team took a brave decision of not travelling to South Africa and play them in the 1974 Davis Cup Challenge round (final) due to the same reasons. They gave up their realistic chance of becoming the world champions at the altar of a principled stand.

India has never used that boycott tool against Pakistan in ICC tournaments, despite a relationship of deep-rooted hostility, suspicion and mistrust of each other, fuelled by politicians of different hues and ideologies. It has from time to time refused to host or play in Pakistan in bilateral events, but tournaments like the World Cup have been exempted from this stand.

It is well-documented how cricket was one last bastion of hope for those who believed that harmonious co-existence and not counting bodies is the only way forward for peace in the region. India and Pakistan have fought bloody wars, accused each other of multiple acts of ghastly terrorism, with the horrific terror killings of Pahalgam becoming the latest flashpoint that resulted in “Operation Sindoor” where India claims to have wiped out terror hubs in Pakistan. Given the nature of the extreme hostile relationship at present, it was a surprise that India agreed to play Pakistan, that too not once but three times in a short span of a fortnight.

The love and commitment that Suryakumar Yadav has for his country that manifested in his not shaking hands with the Pakistanis, did not prevent him from greeting the team’s captain and shaking his hand with a warm smile when the ACC trophy was unveiled a week before the tournament started. He had also greeted Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi with the same handshake courtesy in that event. One doesn’t know what transpired subsequently for the Indian captain to refuse to accept the trophy from the same person and not shake the Pakistan captain’s hand after having beaten his team three times in a row.

Maybe the Indian board, which is nothing but an extension of the Indian Government, was trying to damage-control the outrage in the Indian social media over their team agreeing to play Pakistan. Whatever the reasons, Suryakumar Yadav has breached a code that no captain has in India’s cricketing, nay sports, history. If he was so angry at what Pakistan had done, why did he decide to play in the first place? We would have respected him if he and his team had boycotted playing Pakistan, even if it meant conceding the right over the trophy.

Pakistan by their use of war imagery on the field and India by their petulant antics have set a precedent that has damaged and diminished the very sport they profess to love so much.

— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’