National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz on Monday ruled out a potential cricket series against India, saying he saw no chance of a revival of ties between the arch-rivals under “the current situation”. Aziz’s remarks come with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) awaiting a final response from their Indian counterparts on a series due to be played in December-January in United Arab Emirates.“I see no chance of cricket between Pakistan and India under the current situation,” Aziz told media in Islamabad.
“We need to make (the) situation favourable for cricket and other things. Our board (the PCB) is in contact with Indian officials on cricket so they are in a better position to tell the exact situation but I am not very hopeful,” he added. Sartaj Aziz words are a troubling sign of just how long it could take for the two countries to prepare the ground for even a tentative exchange. And if anyone in recent times had high hopes of cricket playing its customary and often celebrated role of bridging the gap, these have been effectively dashed by those who make or implement national policies in New Delhi and Islamabad. This is a tangle beyond the reach of the game to sort out, the recent flurry of statements predicting no-play for an unforeseen period of time between the two sides.
If anything, it appears that both sides are using cricket as a metaphor to convey just how determined they are to stay at a distance from and hostile to one another.
Although there were long years of no matches between the two sides, Pakistan and India have ‘clashed’ on the cricket ground in the worst of times. In the period beginning the late 1970s, the two countries found ways to play with each other even when some patriots would rather have them fight it out on the borders.
Thus, the inability of Delhi and Islamabad — represented as they are by the BCCI and PCB — to play today demonstrates just how bad the relationship is.
It would be pointless to wish for cricket to be seen as an independent entity that can chart its own course away from the trajectory of Pakistan-India ties that is determined by the growing unease between the two neighbours at the political level.
pk.shafaqna.com
