Political observations from a World Cup

Is the World Cup really being ‘co-hosted’ or just being divided between 3 countries? Here are some observations:

• Bangladesh will not play any match outside Bangladesh
• India play just one match outside India (against Bangladesh, who are co-hosts, so one of them had to play out of country)
• Sri Lanka play only one match outside Sri Lanka (in Mumbai against New Zealand)
• Pakistan play all matches in Sri Lanka
• There are no Pakistani commentators in matches involving India and vice versa. Similarly Sri Lankan commentators are absent from Indian matches

Pakistan not playing any matches in India comes as no surprise, given the heightened anti Pakistan sentiment after the Mumbai terror attacks and the resulting freeze on cricketing ties. But Pakistan not playing in Bangladesh? Does ICC think we are still living in 1971? Given that these days revenue from ticket sales is far overshadowed by that from telecast rights and sponsorships, there is little reason to believe that commercial considerations have dictated the choice of venues.

Pakistan playing all its matches in Sri Lanka has seemingly gone down well with the local supporters. Looking at the fan support for Pakistan in Colombo, Kandy and Hambantota, you could be forgiven for thinking it was probably Sri Lanka playing in green jerseys. Shahid Afridi is arguably the most popular person in Sri Lanka at the moment. What makes Pakistan so popular in Sri Lanka? Despite the fact that a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers was attacked by gunmen in Lahore in early 2009, there is little bad blood between the two countries. And justifiably so. There is no history of conflict between the two countries and the incident would merely go down as one aimed at creating a sense of insecurity in Pakistan. It could have happened with any other team. Sri Lankans probably also relate to Pakistan as another smaller neighbor of a big country like India, which doesn’t exactly count its other neighbors Nepal and Bangladesh among its best friends.

During the run up to the World Cup, we have been made to believe by a loud and jingoistic media that Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Co. are going to steamroll their opponents and lift the world cup in an Ashwamedh Yagya fashion, no one daring to stop their horse. Very conveniently other teams have been labeled out of form (Australia, New Zealand, England) or demotivated (Pakistan, Zimbabwe, West Indies) and simply no match for the unstoppable Indian juggernaut. Gullible fans have bought into this hype and are now getting upset that India has notched up wins only against lowly Netherlands, Ireland and Bangladesh. England gifted India one point in Bangalore and the match against South Africa showed that having 9 wickets in hand during the last 10 overs is a recipe for disaster. Sri Lanka, towards whom Indians have traditionally been neutral to positive have been termed as the other contenders, while far too much has been made of the impact of match fixing scandals involving Mohammed Asif Mohammed Amer and Salman Butt on Pakistani team’s morale.

Print media has been more balanced in its analysis of teams and given due respect to the talent and unpredictable nature of the Pakistani team and the grit of the Aussies. But few have time to read these days. Much time is spent in front of the television watching advertisements worshipping Indian cricketers or motor mouth TV presenters showing us visuals of India’s recent wins 60 times in a span of 5 minutes. Indian television media seems to have stopped seeing the world from any perspective other than Indian. Indian commentators, especially Ravi Shastri do no good by adopting aggressively pro Indian attitude in a job that requires you to be as neutral as possible.

We need to wake up and realize that the world around us has not come to a grinding halt. There is a world beyond India, it is alive, kicking and revolting against corrupt leaders unlike back home where we are told to worship the honesty of a spineless PM and leave everything else to god.