Over-stepping

Trust the British to speak on behalf of everybody else. After the England squad shipped out of the badminton World Championship in Hyderabad this week,British Sport Minister Gerry Sutcliffe dodged the specifics of the incident to make a larger call for the war on terrorism. Never mind that even Badminton Scotland kept its shuttlers in place and said that the English had over-reacted; the minister made a case for international cooperation to secure the 2010 Commonwealth Games from the terrorist threat. I hope we can do something about it,because clearly weve got the Commonwealth Games in India next year,and we dont want to see major sporting events affected in this way, a London newspaper quoted him. So I think its up to governments around the world to try and make sure we stamp out,as much as we are able to,this type of thing. This type of thing? Certainly,there are lessons for sport,for touring teams and for host governments,but it is difficult to see Sutcliffes remarks as little more than obfuscation.

Sport everywhere is now increasingly conducted under a security umbrella,and managements routinely take a call on their confidence in the hosts to perceive and act upon threats. And were Sutcliffes government to be returned in general elections that must be held within 10 months in Britain,his Labour colleagues should be answering similar queries as the 2012 London Olympics approach. Thus Badminton England has invited adjectives like immature from competitors for precisely this reason; there is an air of casualness to the decision that betrays no prior effort to meaningfully interrogate the hosting federation,or the government,or even the Badminton World Federation on

security threats and consequent arrangements. This is,one,bad diplomacy: the kind of churlishness sought to be made honourable by lunging for every excuse that can needlessly curdle bilateral relations. It is also bad for sport. Even the most fierce or commercially contested rivalries are ennobled by an ethic that privileges the competition. Of course,the English lose any shot at a medal they may have had. But disrupting a draw so offhandedly and abruptly is definitely not badminton.

There is,however,a takeaway for the Indian authorities too. There is a sense that governments and police forces dwell long and loud on security threats as insurance against a possible crisis were there to be a terrorist strike. The Hyderabad example should caution them against such carelessly-worded alerts. It should also sensitise them to the folly of allowing the BCCI to represent its scheduling issues for the IPL as a simple case of security threats.