Leave the kids alone, please!

 

One of my youngest batchmates in the IPS was widely expected to head the force in his cadre one day, age at entry being very important. He was doing well in the career too. Until he realised that his son had some potential in Cricket. After that, he forgot everything else and focused single-minded on getting his son into the Indian team. He chose postings (sometimes fairly unimportant ones) whereby he could devote maximum time towards that objective and his son would get the best chance. He also stopped his son’s studies so that the latter could devote himself full-time to the sport. There must’ve been a whole lot of unimaginable hard choices – diet, commute, personal coach/ trainer, on and on. It requires such single-minded obsession and sacrifices to make it. Because, in India, almost every boy plays Cricket growing up and the vacancies in any of the Indian playing teams are exactly eleven at any point of time. 

With all this and despite being from a fairly privileged background and even despite serious talent (remarkable knocks in the IPL), the boy hasn't been able to make it to the Indian team. One can only imagine what a boy or his family from a not-so-privileged background or from the hinterland must be going through when that all-elusive India cap beckons as a goal. Yashaswi Jaiswal selling Panipuris to sustain himself in Mumbai; Dhoni juggling between checking train tickets and playing; Hardik Pandya surviving on 5-rupee Maggi for breakfast and lunch, 365 days a year; Natarajan’s father a daily-wage labourer in Chinapampatti village, Tamil Nadu; Md. Siraj’s father an auto-rickshaw driver. 

Look at what has happened in the just-concluded Asia cup. Starting with the Captain, Surya Kumar Yadav (SKY) who refused to shake hands with the Pak captain at the toss in their first match. The Indian team walked off the field without the customary handshakes with their opponents in the same match. In the post-match presentation, SKY made it a point to mention the Pahalgam attack victims. Pakistani player Haris Rauf made a 6-0 gesture to the crowd. Sahibzada Farhan indulged in ‘Gun’ celebration after making a half century. SKY pooh-poohed any talk of ‘rivalry’ between the two teams, quoting the head-to-head record in T20Is. Arshdeep Singh made an obscene gesture. Bumrah signalled jet crash after taking Haris Rauf’s wicket. Indian players refused to collect the trophy and medals from the Asian Cricket Council President (Mohsin Naqvi) as he was “also one of the main political leaders of Pakistan.” The latter chose to take away the trophy and the medals. Finally, the tweet calling India’s victory “OperationSindoor on the games field.”  

What exactly was the point of it all? It seems that as far as the international community and the global defence community are concerned, Pakistan won the war – witness Trump’s hosting of General Munir and the Pakistan PM, surge in stock prices of Chengdu jet company, etc.. Even our CDS admitted in public to having made a tactical blunder which took two days to recover from in a four-day war. All these shenanigans on the cricket field will not change that. Domestically, for the discerning public, the two spins, viz., A. we were winning and B. we didn’t cave in to American pressure, don’t add up because why then did we stop the war? 

How does mentioning Pahalgam in the presentation ceremony help? If Pahalgam was still a big issue after the war, why play Pakistan at all?  The conduct of the Indian teams looked like the losers’ conduct, not confident winners’. It was also extremely graceless. The reprehensible conduct of the Pakistani team and officials does not justify anything because India started it all. Everyone who represents a country on the cricket field comes up through enormous struggles and heartbreaks. On their day, any team can win. In fact, Pakistan nearly won the finals. Given that, SKY’s utterances (Pakistan no rivals, etc.) speaks of unconscionable lack of respect for opponents. Well before the tournament, it was known that Mohsin Naqvi is the current president of Asian Cricket Council. If India participated in the tournament of the same Asian Cricket Council despite that, then why can’t he present the trophy? That tweet equating the match to Operation Sindoor. The final was extremely close and it was anyone’s game. So, going by the tweet, if India had lost the match, would it have meant that we were defeated in the war? 

Just think of the kind of risks we as a nation were taking by using the players as pawns in the larger political game. After all the drama of no handshakes, mention of Pahalgam, derisive dismissal of rivalry talk and all the other in-your-face gestures, if we had lost the finals, it would have been such a body blow to the nation’s psyche. That last ball six of Miandad in peace times took us decades to recover from. This one would’ve taken ages. 

During the most successful war of modern times (1971) which India won comprehensively in just 13 days taking 90,000 Pakistanis as prisoners, a young Pakistan Captain (Asan Malik) defended a position called Hilly so well that the Indian forces did not succeed in capturing it in several attempts. Even though we captured the post finally, our Chief of Army Staff, later to be Field Marshal, Sam Manekshaw, impressed by the Captain’s valour, sent a personal letter of appreciation and even recommended a gallantry award for him to his superiors. During his subsequent visit to Pakistan, he reiterated his request to his counterparts there. He also ensured that the 90,000 prisoners were treated well and with dignity in India. This is called respect for the opponent. And, graciousness in winning, even when the win is such a massive one. 

These cricketers are young kids who have obsessively devoted most of their years to Cricket. MoM in the final match, Tilak Verma is just 22 years old. Cricket is what they are best at and all that they know and all that they should be doing. Let the cricketers play their Cricket (when the circumstances permit) and let the battles be left to the battlefield. Please!