Shadows Across the Playing Field

156 Pages·2011·0.87 MB·English

by  Shashi Tharoor

crossborder talks
SHADOWS ACROSS THE PLAYING FIELD
60 YEARS OF INDIA-PAKISTAN CRICKET

SHASHI THAROOR
SHAHARYAR KHAN
SERIES EDITOR
DAVID PAGE
Lotus Collection
© Shashi Tharoor and Shaharyar Khan, 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
This edition published in June 2009
Second impression August 2009
The Lotus Collection
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Cover Design: Supriya Saran
Layout: Nabanita Das
Scorecards: James Alter
ISBN: 978-81-7436-718-1
Typeset in AGaramond by Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.
and printed at Saurabh Printers, Okhla.
OTHER CROSSBORDER TALKS TITLES:
Dr Humayun Khan and G. Diplomatic Divide
Parthasarathy
Meghnad Desai and Aitzaz Ahsan Divided by Democracy
Gyanendra Pandey and Yunas Fault Lines of Nationhood
Samad
Kuldip Nayar and Asif Noorani Tales of Two Cities
OTHER LOTUS TITLES:
Ajit Bhattarcharjea Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah: Tragic Hero of
Kashmir
Anil Dharker Icons: Men & Women Who Shaped Today’s
India
Aitzaz Ahsan The Indus Saga: The Making of Pakistan
Alam Srinivas & TR Vivek IPL: The Inside Story
Amir Mir The True Face of Jehadis: Inside Pakistan’s
Terror Networks
Ashok Mitra The Starkness of It
H.L.O. Garrett The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar
M.J. Akbar India: The Siege Within
M.J. Akbar Kashmir: Behind the Vale
M.J. Akbar The Shade of Swords
M.J. Akbar Byline
M.J. Akbar Blood Brothers: A Family Saga
Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo Param Vir: Our Heroes in Battle
Maj. Gen. Ian Cardozo The Sinking of INS Khukri: What Happened
in 1971
Madhu Trehan Tehelka as Metaphor
Mushirul Hasan India Partitioned. 2 Vols
Mushirul Hasan John Company to the Republic
Mushirul Hasan Knowledge, Power and Politics
Nayantara Sahgal (ed.) Before Freedom: Nehru’s Letters to His
Sister
Nilima Lambah A Life Across Three Continents
Sharmishta Gooptu and Boria Revisiting 1857: Myth, Memory, History
Majumdar (eds)
Shashi Joshi The Last Durbar
Shrabani Basu Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan
Shyam Bhatia Goodbye Shahzadi: A Political Biography
FORTHCOMING LOTUS
TITLES:
M.B. Naqvi Pakistan on Knife’s Edge
Amir Mir Fluttering Flag of Jehad
contents

introduction
david page
fantasies and realities
shashi tharoor
rivalry and diplomacy
shaharyar khan
acknowledgements
scorecards
index
The disagreements between Hindus and Muslims before 1947, and between
India and Pakistan since, have thrown a long shadow across the playing
fields of the world.
– Ramachandra Guha, A Corner of a Foreign Field
introduction

i
n 1987, I arrived by chance at Lahore airport at more or less the same time as
Imran Khan and his teammates, who had just won their first Test series against
India, followed by a 5-1 victory in the one-day internationals. Proceeding from
the airport to Faletti’s hotel took a very long time as the taxi got caught up in a
sea of supporters in exultant mood waving flags and cheering their heroes. I
particularly remember seeing a phalanx of scooters, six or seven abreast, each
with three or four young men on board, each sporting welcoming banners, on
one of which was written the memorable slogan: Imran Khan Faateh-i-Hind
(Conqueror of India). It was more a reception for a Mughal emperor than for a
cricket team captain.
The German military theorist, von Clausewitz, famously wrote that ‘war is
merely the continuation of politics by other means’. For much of the last sixty
years the same might also be said of the cricketing rivalry between India and
Pakistan. Cricket has pride of place in the sporting calendars of both countries
and no fixture is awaited with more anticipation than Tests or one-day
internationals (ODIs) between them. In all cricket-playing countries, national
teams carry the hopes and aspirations of millions of supporters but Indian and
Pakistani teams often seem to be engaged more in a proxy war than a sporting
encounter. An Indian journalist who visited both teams before their World Cup
fixture in South Africa in 2003 was told by one cricketer that ‘the mood in the
respective dressing rooms was akin to soldiers in a bunker, both sides desperate
to emerge victorious in the end’.1
Ramachandra Guha in his classic history of cricket in India A Corner of a
Foreign Field has brilliantly shown how the game has been closely entwined
with politics from the very beginning.2 In nineteenth century Bombay, the Parsis
and Hindus fought for their own space on the maidan in a challenge to the
dominant European gymkhana which mirrored the stirrings of Indian
nationalism. In the early twentieth century, the Parsi and Hindu gymkhanas were
joined by a Muslim gymkhana – the Muslims taking to cricket, as they took to
politics, more tardily than others – and the ground was laid for the famous