Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

India v Pakistan? I’d rather cover Italy than miserable, toxic spectacle
Once the fixture was one that journalists and broadcasters begged to attend, now it’s nothing more than a proxy for political point-scoring

By Mike Atherton

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/cricket/article/india-v-pakistan-t20...

ll eyes on Colombo on Sunday, then. Money in modern cricket does not so much talk as scream, so it was always likely that a way would be found for the India v Pakistan game to take place. This is the fixture that has become too big to fail — the contest that allows for the functioning of the international cricket system as it stands — even though it has become an unattractive game in its present guise, as a proxy for political point-scoring.

When Pakistan pulled out of the fixture a fortnight ago on government advice, so sending a financial shiver down the spine of the rest of the cricketing fraternity, it highlighted two things: first, how politicised the game has become in the region and, second, how fragile the cricket economy is, based to a disproportionate degree on one single match that can be played only in global events on neutral soil, between two countries whose relationship is toxic.

The line from Pakistan on their original decision to pull out was that they were standing in solidarity with Bangladesh. Mustafizur Rahman, a Bangladesh bowler, had been forcibly removed from the Indian Premier League in January by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, after political pressure amid deteriorating relations between India and Bangladesh, which, in turn, prompted Bangladesh to pull out of the T20 World Cup, in a tit-for-tat move, citing security concerns and government advice.

Pakistan seized their chance. Their initial refusal to play India was not so much a move of principle, but of opportunism: a moment to further unsettle an already unstable situation; to destabilise a tournament in India in the same way the Champions Trophy in Pakistan had been upended a year earlier, and a moment to remind everyone that they have significant skin in a game around which the entire cricketing financial system revolves.

The diplomacy that followed was a reminder that cricket is more than a game in these parts. Heads of governments were involved; history was revisited, friendships noted, obligations invoked. The ICC had a key role, too, given its reliance on this one match taking place. As has been often noted, the ICC is, in effect, an events company, organising annual global tournaments to keep franchise cricket at bay and prop up the balance sheets of its members. It has become a match then, to repeat, that is too big to fail.



There is likely to be the usual feverish anticipation over the next day or two; breathless articles about the number of eyeballs on the game, usually said to be somewhere in the mid-hundreds of millions, and the importance of the occasion. In truth, it has become a miserable spectacle recently — both on the field, where it has become too one-sided, and off it, where the result has been exploited in a performative way.

As Sushant Singh wrote on the Substack Cricket Et Al in September: “Cricket between India and Pakistan has ceased being sport in any meaningful sense. Like the daily flag-lowering at Wagah border, it has become choreographed hyper-jingoistic theatre designed to showcase noxious superiority and stoke nationalist sentiment.



“It is politically deployed as a weapon of toxic nationalism where the idea of sport and sportsmanship is subservient to the pursuit of national pride. Instead of building fraternal ties and people-to-people contact, the cricket field becomes the site of playing of their nationalist fantasies.”

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

India v Pakistan? I’d rather cover Italy than miserable, toxic spectacle
Once the fixture was one that journalists and broadcasters begged to attend, now it’s nothing more than a proxy for political point-scoring

By Mike Atherton

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/cricket/article/india-v-pakistan-t20...

These comments came after the Asia Cup, a tournament in which India’s players refused to shake hands with their Pakistan counterparts; in which they refused to accept the trophy from the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board (a government minister), and after which India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, sent a message on social media likening his team’s cricketing triumph to an earlier military operation in the Kashmir.

Once upon a time, it was the fixture that any journalist or broadcaster would beg to cover, it being the biggest, most consequential in the sport. Yet this week, to be frank, greater satisfaction was to be had covering matches involving Nepal and Italy. On Thursday, at the magnificent Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, there was no subtext to the simple pleasure of the Italian supporters in the stands or on the faces of the Mosca brothers, Justin and Anthony, who took their team to their first-ever World Cup win.

They shared an unbeaten opening partnership of 124 and the joy on their faces was unconstrained when the winning runs were hit. Both are grade cricketers from Sydney with Italian heritage: Justin is a PE teacher at a local school, Anthony a carpenter by trade who teaches woodwork at a juvenile detention centre. Both dreamt of being Paolo Maldini or Roberto Baggio in their youth but have ended up on a winning side in a cricket World Cup instead. The player of the match, the leg spinner Crishan Kalugamage, tosses pizzas for a living.

So, yes, I’ll be tuning in on Sunday for the big match but, right now, it feels as much out of a sense of obligation than pleasure. The old cliché about sport being important precisely because it is so unimportant has rarely felt less applicable.

Comment