You don’t have to be a former international cricketer or even a cricketing expert to realize that the Indian cricket team did at the end of their match with Pakistan in the Asia Cup, just wasn’t cricket.
Many arguments can be used against the unsportsmanlike behavior of the Indian team. Let’s start with the most obvious observations: If you want to boycott another country’s sports team, do it fully – not play at all. But if you have decided to play the match against what you have considered a hostile country, then it makes it a sport and not a war. And at least in the cricket that includes the shaking of his hands by opposing team members when a match is over.
India seems to have easily forgotten that not a country in the world – not even its former allies – bought his tale that Pakistan or someone from or attached to Pakistan was behind the Pahagam attack. In fact, Pakistan even offered to be part of a comprehensive investigation into the case as long as it would be performed by an independent and neutral party.
As for the Indian T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav’s remarks to the media at the ceremony after the match, if he is so committed to playing for the war drums, he may have to leave the cricket, who is still a sport and join the Indian army.
Despite not presenting an Iota of evidence – something that even India’s own most important opposition parties admitted – the BJP government conducted an attack on Pakistan, where many precious lives were lost and there was public and private injury.
India was certainly not the victim in this, but rather the averted aggressor. This is actually just out of Israel Playbook, who used exactly the same reason after it attacked Qatar. It painted itself as a victim and claimed that it was only trying to attack those who had attacked it – conveniently forgotten the tens of thousands of Palestinians, including thousands of children – that it has killed in Gaza for the last almost two years.
This is not everything. The way the mainstream Indian media whipped up jingoist mood and the way in which some well-known Indian TV news anchors mocked former Indian cricketers to “not speak against the fight” was absurd-and it sets mildly.
It was absurd because it was not former Indian cricketers like Sourav Ganguly or Rahul Dravid who had given the Indian cricket team to play the match, but the BJP government itself. And here, mainstream Indian media – generally called ‘Godi Media’ to be in Modi’s lap – ignore the fact and mock past Indian cricketers for not taking a stand. They also overlooked the fact that Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is usually run by a person seen as close to the reigning party.
In contrast, despite the fact that Pakistan was attacked without India, which presented some evidence of its commitment to the Pahagam attack, and although it gave a sound to the Indian Air Force shooting so many seven of his fighter jets, including three valued Rafales, the Pakistani media did not beat any war drums or asked his cricketers not to play. Nor did it ask the Pakistani government to prevent the national cricket team from playing India and rightly suggested that sports and politics do not and should not be mixed.
After the match, Pakistan Cricket Board rightly filed a complaint with the international cricket Council (ICC) and asked it to keep the Indian team in violation of the Code of Conduct, which also decides that members of conflicting teams shake hands after the end of a game.
Given that the ICC is largely considered largely to be completely inferior to the whims of the Indian cricket board and considering that ICC is now operated by Jay Shah, who is the Son of Indian Home Minister, the son of the Secretary Shah, it is of course very unlikely that ICC will act after Pakistan’s complaint.
The actions of India’s cricket players have brought the cricket game contradicted and have also lowered their own stature in the eyes of the cricketing world. Several former cricketers as well as commentators and journalists covering the sport have unequivocally come out in condemnation of refusal from the Indian cricket team to shake hands with the Pakistani team after their match.
This has shown that India is a country that is unable to separate politics from sports and also one that is either unable or unwilling to respect its opponents. After all, even in a war, an honorable soldier would show respect for a worthy opponent.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and does not necessarily reflect Pakinomist.tv’s editorial policy.
The author is a journalist based in Karachi. He tweets/posts @omar_quraishi and can be reached at: [email protected]
