India-Pak-Bangladesh: Once upon a time, friends on the pitch |
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........