Cricket
legend Kapil Dev remembers what it
was like playing for his country against
India's bitter rival, Pakistan, when he
made his international debut in 1978:
a bowler was expected to aim at the
batsman's body.
"When I played my first series against
Pakistan, it did look like a war," India's
1983 World Cup-winning captain said
during a recent TV panel discussion.
"In our time, we were expected more
to harm the Pakistani players than win
a match."
Fast-forward to 2012, and India and
Pakistan are once again preparing to
face off on the cricket field, playing
their first series since 2008, when
already brittle relations were
shattered by the Mumbai attacks.
The fact that the matches are
happening at all is widely seen as a
sign of the warming atmospherics
between the South Asian neighbours,
which have fought three wars in their
brief independent history and remain
deeply mistrustful of each other.
Some 3,000 Pakistani cricket fans will
travel to India, benefiting from a more
relaxed visa regime that was agreed
on earlier this month as part of a
series of confidence-building
measures. The teams will play five
matches across different Indian cities,
starting on December 25.
It is the latest round of what is known
as "cricket diplomacy" - a tradition of
using the subcontinent's favourite
sport to mend relations that stretch
back a quarter of a century and saw
their respective prime ministers hold
pitch-side talks last year.
"Politically, cricket has always been
there to break the ice," said Aamer
Naseer, a Pakistani TV sports show
host.
CRICKET PSYCHOLOGY
Both India and Pakistan are crazy
about cricket and emotions run high
whenever the two sides meet, usually
in stadiums packed to the rafters and
resounding with jingoistic slogan-
shouting.
"The atmosphere is unparalleled,"
Omer Ghaznavi, a sports analyst for
City FM, a popular Pakistani radio
station. "I haven't been to another
sporting event where people are so
charged up."
Such is the pressure that the Pakistan
Cricket Board is sending a psychologist
to help the players cope with the tour.
Former Pakistan captain Waqar
Younis, alongside Dev at the panel
discussion, explained the strain
players come under.
"My boys even stopped speaking to
each other, such was the pressure,"
Younis said. "People dub it a war.
Well, it's certainly not a war. At the
same time, it's not just sports either. It
is somewhere in between."
New Delhi and Islamabad have used
cricketing occasions to try to make
progress on issues that have dogged
relations since the two nations won
independence from Britain in 1947,
especially over the fate of the Kashmir
region they both claim.
In 1987, then-Pakistan President
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq visited India to
watch a cricket match. But the event
was also used to defuse a crisis over
troop build-ups on one of the world's
most militarised borders, meeting
Indian prime minister of the day, Rajiv
Gandhi.
In 2005, Pakistan's then-military ruler,
Pervez Musharraf, travelled to India to
watch a cricket match, but the trip also
became a summit with Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and the two leaders
agreed to open up the Kashmir
border.
Relations are slowing improving since
the attack on India's financial capital
in 2008, when Pakistani militants went
on a killing spree that left 166 people
dead and raised fears of an Indian
reprisal against its nuclear-armed
neighbour.
India accuses elements of the Pakistani
state of collusion in the assault, and of
dragging its feet in bringing the
planners of the attack to justice,
allegations Islamabad strongly denies.
Indian authorities hanged the lone
surviving gunman of the attack last
month.
But festering diplomatic sores are
unlikely to overshadow the cricket
tour, according to sports historian
Boria Majumdar.
Both countries "welcome resumption
of cricket ties. They know it's
important to play and engage in trade.
They know you don't achieve anything
by not playing with each other," he
said.
"Cricket badly needs an India-Pakistan
series. So do the fans," he said.
"Have no illusion, a cricket series can't
herald peace between two feuding
nations. At the end of the day, it's the
responsibility of the political
classes." (Writing by Amlan
Chakraborty and Matthias Williams;
Additional reporting by Aisha
Chowdhry; Editing by John Chalmers
and Sanjeev Miglani)
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