Opinion India-Pak-Bangladesh: Once upon a time, friends on the pitch
Having climbed high, India has their heads in the clouds. They have forgotten those on whose shoulders they stand, the neighbours who helped and their commitment to the sport that has made them prosperous.
Former BCCI chief NKP Salve (left) and his Pakistan counterpart, retired Air Chief Marshal Nur Khan, presented a united front when it came to cricket. (Express archives, Wikipedia) 
In the sub-continent, be it neighbours in a housing colony or nations with shared borders, slamming shut the cricket door is seen as the ultimate act severing ties. Pappu and Raju aren’t allowed to play bat-ball when Mr Sharma gets miffed with Mr Verma next door over chucking trash across the fence. On the grand stage of international diplomacy, for far more serious misadventures, India and Pakistan, and now even Bangladesh, weaponise cricket, flipping the very idea of sport as soft power on its head. This wasn’t how it used to be.
In the 1980s and 1990s, India and Pakistan players didn’t just shake hands, they hugged, joked, swore the same profanities and hung out together long after stumps. Their officials were brothers-in-arms when fighting the common enemy — cricket’s influential Anglo-Aussie axis. India and Pakistan would also watch the back of their younger sibling — Bangladesh.
Back then, the International Cricket Council was run by a blatantly biased rule book that was written by and for the Whites. The World Cup would always be on British soil, England and Australia wouldn’t just have two votes in any ICC decision, but also the veto if they were still in minority.
A revolt for change was born on June 26, 1983 — a day after India won the World Cup at Lord’s. And the seeds of cricket’s democratisation were sown by two men from countries that had fought wars and regularly traded allegations of destabilising each other.
The two board chiefs, politician NKP Salve and retired Air Chief Marshal Nur Khan, had many reasons to cold-shoulder each other but when it came to cricket, they would become thick as thieves. Salve, an Indira Gandhi loyalist, was a Lok Sabha MP during the 1965 Indo-Pak war, the conflict where Khan was Pakistan Air-Force’s commander-in-chief. Unlike today, cricketing loyalty carried more weight than political, military or even nationalistic allegiance.
A lot can happen over a plate of biryani when an Indian and Pakistani meet, even if it’s at the Lord’s dining area. So less than 24 hours after Kapil Dev lifted the Cup and an entire nation, a surprisingly glum Salve met Khan over lunch. The Indian board chief was miffed by the English refusing his request for a couple of passes, or even tickets that he was willing to pay for.
As Salve and Khan moaned how “passes” was the least they could do for the president of a board whose team played the final, a stray comment hit the air. It was an exasperated Khan who blurted out: “Why can’t we play the next World Cup in our countries?” That was to be Asia’s eureka moment.
Next year, in 1984, the India-Pakistan-Sri Lanka troika won a joint-bid to bring the Cup to the sub-continent. They came up with an offer the ICC members couldn’t refuse. Each permanent member was promised £200,000, nearly four times more than what the permanent host-contender England was offering. In a sly move that would have made the street-smart traders from Lahore and Delhi’s old bazaars proud, India and Pakistan said they wouldn’t take money from ICC to host the event. This was an offer with no precedent, and the Anglo-Aussie partnership fell for this too-good-to-be-true sweetheart deal.
Unforeseen by England and Australia, the World Cup moving to Asia signalled the change of a power equation. The 1987 Reliance Cup made India and Pakistan, and the world, realise the worth of their cricket in Asia. It was the epochal moment when India’s financial tap got turned on and it continues to cascade buckets full of notes to date.
After Salve and Khan got the World Cup to the sub-continent, Jagmohan Dalmiya, in a symbolic power shift, would play a big role in shifting the ICC headquarters from London to Dubai. Dalmiya would also lay the foundation of the Asian Cricket Council, grant Test status to Bangladesh and, if the grapevine is to be believed, protect Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar when he was unfairly called a chucker by the world.
With each passing year, India’s voice would get stronger and coffers fuller. These days the BCCI has no opposition at ICC. In a first, BCCI’s Jay Shah would be ICC president uncontested. The Anglo-Aussie era was well and truly over.
Tragically, during their heady rise, some old bonds broke and mindsets changed. There had been wars and disagreements between neighbours in the past, politicians and military heads have ruled boards but they’d remained committed to the sport and never tried to shut that cricket door on impulse. But now the priorities have changed. Having climbed high, India has their heads in the clouds. They have forgotten those on whose shoulders they stand, the neighbours who helped and their commitment to the sport that has made them prosperous.
The writer is Sports Editor, The Indian Express
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