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Subject : Never trust your neighbour, especially if its India
Unfortunately, PCB has not been on the calling side of the table for some time now. In most situations, it had to accept whatever was thrown its way. Teams flatly refused to step in Pakistan and PCB was forced to host matches abroad, depriving itself from pocketing huge revenues and fans from witnessing cliff hangers.
With all its efforts exhausted, there was little PCB could do when the ‘Big Three’ walked in with the promise to unearth King John’s lost treasure. The idea generated stanch resistance from the then PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf, who refused to kneel down calling it bullying from the Big Three. But with the regime change within PCB, the new bosses were willing to risk their money as well as test their luck.
You cannot blame them, the offer was mammoth. Garnished with six bilateral series against arch rivals India, PCB was proposed to be richer by a whopping Rs 30 billion over the next eight years.
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So basically what the Big Three said was, join us and we will fill your coffers with uncountable figures
Tempting indeed, but the offer came with its set of cautions. While the tag team of Shahryar Khan and Najam Sethi assured all that they had hit the bullseye, most senior journalists and former cricketers were just not ready to beat the drum.
We all were skeptical of the promises, but we kept our apprehensions within. Pakistan cricket and fans needed a shot of optimism and we wanted to give this ‘Good News’ its fair chance.
Sports and politics, forced to merge together
This skepticism was built on genuine fears; behind this deal was India, our contrasting neighbour who has time and again strangled cricket ties to uplift its political jigsaws. With the slightest of bullet sounds along the Line of Control (LoC) or an unfortunate terror riot, the first thing to land under the guillotine is cricket.
The Mumbai attacks in 2008 saw the cancellation of a full stretch tour, and just recently the Gurdaspur incident has all but killed any possibility for India’s tour in December this year.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary, Anurag Thakur, blames Pakistan for harbouring its wanted terrorists and rules out any cricketing ties till we hand them over. I have little political sense and would better leave this argument to defense analysts, but I have learned this important lesson over the years, ‘Separating the one thing that bridges the two nations won’t yield any solution’.
India’s temperamental attitude towards Pakistan is no secret to anyone, same goes for BCCI that reserves its decision to play with Pakistan on its government’s dictation. In such a fragile environment, a catastrophe is always around the corner, and as always, it did not take long to hit with force.
Agree to play in India, everything would be fine
Don’t be surprised but yes that is exactly what India wants PCB to do. Send the Green Shirts over to India and we have got ourselves a game. They will not play in Pakistan because we are terrorists, but then, we are not if we play in their home.
This juggernaut is nothing new, let us go back to 2012 to understand India’s rationale in its true contest.
After the 2008 Mumbai attacks the entire Indian nation stood united in maligning Pakistan for the bloody attacks, and with Ajmal Kasab’s hanging on November 21, 2012, the anti-Pakistan sentiments scaled the heights of Hiroshima’s black clouds.
Shockingly, just five weeks into Kasab’s hanging, on December 25, 2012, Pakistan was facing India in front of Bangalore’s sellout crowd. How could the hostile neighbour that did not even want to discuss bilateral ties, suddenly turn congenial and go all out to invite Pakistan to play on its soil?
The magical ointment that suddenly soothed blazing emotions must have been bottled in commercialism. For the real answer one has to consider India’s humongous financial power and the nation’s insatiable appetite for cricket. BCCI smartly squeezed a quick five games series between the windows available during England’s split tour to India.
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