Wicked cricket

What do they know of cricket who only cricket know, once asked the game8217;s greatest writer. It is a question that is bound to hover over the subcontinent for the next six weeks as the Indian cricket team criss-crosses Pakistan in its first full tour of that country in 15 years. As Saurav Ganguly8217;s men show up for one-day and Test encounters with Inzamam-ul-Haq8217;s teammates, runs scored and wickets taken will not be the only quantities that will be eagerly tabulated. In those scoresheets will be inked in the entire gamut of Indo-Pak engagements, spanning more than half a century, carrying omens about the fate of current goodwill gestures and diplomatic overtures. We will, we hope, be keeping scores, not settling them.

This is not to say that cricket cannot be deployed to settle scores. In this season of election and cricket, we say let the two coalesce. The intensity with which political parties are exerting themselves to induct film actors and retired cricketers throws up too interesting a proposition to be ignored. In the long and arduous run-up to the big event 8212; the actual polling 8212; let us schedule some shadow bouts. Let us have a cricket match. The BJP is already on its way to assembling a playing eleven, its own Lagaan line-up, with Mohinder Amarnath and K. Srikkanth joining the likes of Kirti Azad and Navjot Sidhu. The prospects of Chandigarh8217;s pride signing up for the Congress cause are, as ever, said to be exceptionally bright. Let these seniors fight it out against each other on the field, so that the rest of us can at least begin to gauge which way the electoral winds are blowing.

Because the beauty contests at press briefings at party headquarters are getting rather tiresome. The daily parade of out-of-work Miss Indias and jaded superstars is actually making us wistful for the old days: those days when spokespersons actually found space at the podium to hurl rhetoric at opponents. But now that idealogues have relocated to the television studio, let us make for the cricket field. While the teams may struggle to achieve that optimum mix of spin and pace, they will certainly not lack for administrators. Their new political colleagues have already given proof of their capacity in that sphere.