Grand demands on cricket

At the Pindi Cricket Stadium, a security official hails an Indian journalist. I was part of the security team at Multan, he says, before rai...

At the Pindi Cricket Stadium, a security official hails an Indian journalist. I was part of the security team at Multan, he says, before raising his gaze to the sky and beseeching the powers that be to ensure that the remaining two days pass by peacefully.

At Taxila, a museum employee hails Indian visitors through to the Gandhara jewellery exhibits. No problem, he smiles when they mutter apologies for inconveniencing him, we are friends now.

In his victorious press briefing, Saurav Ganguly pleads, let8217;s stick to cricketing questions. On this special day for Indian cricket, it is tempting to ignore the cricket and inquire into the game8217;s revelations for the subcontinent. Now that India and Pakistan have got through an entire series without incident, are we on the road to reconciliation?

Now that 20,000 Indians have visited Pakistan on cricket visas and been embraced by lavish hospitality, are the portents well and truly encouraging? Grand demands have been made on cricket this spring, as if the antics of 22 men could banish bilateral troubles to the history books.

And cricketers are the first to point you back to field. It8217;s a game, they have been chirping throughout. But in their elaborations, they do point to the benefits of this 8216;8216;cricket diplomacy.8217;8217;

In Multan, Rahul Dravid drew comparisons between the crowds at Taunton and Centurion in the 1999 and 2003 World Cups on the one hand, and the spectators at Karachi and Lahore for the one-dayers last month. He contrasted the acrimonious atmosphere in those contests with the sporting spirit here.

In that difference, lie clues to the gains for Indo-Pak relations and cricket.

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On the ground, cricket historian Ramachandra Guha notes, spectators tend to amplify cues from their leaders. Sunday will mark the first anniversary of Prime Minister Vajpayee8217;s famous speech at Srinagar. In this year normalization has moved apace. People in both countries have heard their leaders speak of the imperatives of peace.

Cricket, it so happens, has provided them the space, the island, to meet on familiar ground. It is not that cricket is some magical process that soothes or destroys relations. Cricket simply provides a set of rules within which to interact. The ethic of the game has seeped into Indians and Pakistanis. There are agreed regulations that operated. It is thus the handiest meeting ground.

And this month, people of both countries found that they could actually get together and have a lot of fun. It has also been a milestone for Indo-Pak cricket. This is the greatest rivalry in the sport today. It is no bad thing, it elicits the best from both teams. This past month the two teams have taken ownership of the rivalry. And they have done it on the subcontinent.

For too much of the nineties, cricket was played in external venues, it was captive to the emotions of expatriates. The subcontinent provides cricket with the greatest number of viewers, and as the crowds in Karachi, Lahore and elsewhere showed with their sportsmanship 8212; paralleling the famous Chennai crowd of 1999 8212; home crowds are more responsible.

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On a day when India won their first Test series in Pakistan, there is, then, good reason to cheer the game.