Poetic Justice

Avinash Subramaniam

What's the next big thing on the Indian cricket calendar? (Right.) And few things in the recent past have more at stake than the big one coming up through the months of February and March. So what kind of preparation does our board decide to present our cricketers with? Well, how about a quick one-day 'tamasha' in Sharjah. No thank you. (And thank God.)

Fact is, nothing pleases me more than to see the latest fixed/planned 'jamboree' cancelled. And the reasons have little to do with politics. Which is not to say I am in favour of mixing politics and sport. But in times like this when sports and politics seem almost inalienable from one and other, politics cannot be separated from sport. (But more on that later.) That apart, to me, there's little point in playing in Sharjah. And certainly not at a time when we ought to be spending all the time available putting together a serious team for the even 'seriouser' business of playing Test cricket. God knows, we don't get enough of that.

Consider this. Five Test matches over the last year, with more one-dayers than I care to remember thrown in, and a domestic season that's hardly a patch on the kind of cricket the real world is, is the kind of preparation we're going in with against the best team in world cricket. Against a team that started preparing for their 'latest conquest' when they were in the middle of their last. But no, the board believes now is the time to raise money by playing more one-dayers. Even a person with average intelligence will tell you there are ways to do more than whatever it is that the board, so hastily, decided was the 'thing' to do for the victims of the earthquake than break up a team preparing for, perhaps, their biggest test at home.

But, of course, what more can we expect from the board? We are, after all, what's a little 'team preparation,' thinking about the game, and plotting and planning for a war the Aussies are already a step and a half closer than us to winning. I mean, this is the same board that allows men like Jayawant Lele and Mr. Morarka to get away with making a career out of shooting their mouths off, issuing shameless denials and offering few straight answers.

What mystifies me most though, is this unholy eagerness to play Pakistan that members of the Indian board seem to be showing at every given, or otherwise, opportunity. First, the repeated attempts to get a go-ahead on the series to Pakistan. And now this. Not to mention the not-so-subtle pressure tactic in the form of irresponsible statements to the media blustering away the supposed 'assurances' that the tour will go through. Almost as if to say…now that it is out in the open, the government will have no choice but to tow the line. Makes one wonder what's on the board's mind.

In fact, it even makes one wonder whether the mischievous little statement that was attributed to Wasim was actually 'planted' by someone whose interests lay in the board's corner. Again, in the hope that some reactionary would jump and say something to the effect like... who's afraid of Pakistan? Let's play them. Let's give the go-ahead. We'll show them. (Remember the bit about Akram reportedly having said that the Indians' didn't want to play the Pakis because they were scared of being beaten by them?)

And it's not like the other side of the Wagah is exactly the way to go to improve our cricket. The more we see of the two boards, the more one wonders what is it about us people, Pakistani and Indian, that makes us so tolerant of the kind of nonsense these guys almost seem to revel in.

Hey, from the looks of it, if there is so little different about the way we run our cricket, why not join hands and run it together. But then, the kind of reactions I got the last time I suggested that don't make me want to go any deeper into that dark, hopeless tunnel. Anyway, enough said. And three cheers to the Indian government for allowing her team to prepare in peace for the Aussies. (So what if they didn't intend it to be that way.)

Avinash Subramaniam

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