Line & Length
R Mohan
Good, bad relations on and off the cricket field
November 26, 2007
The General won't be at the cricket. He has more pressing things to attend to at home. Whenever Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf came to the cricket, he created a buzz. As the patron of PCB, he was a frequent visitor to India-Pakistan matches and he used cricket nicely as a diplomatic tool in his games with India. The current series may be the lesser for his absence.
The eyeball to eyeball confrontation between Shahid Afridi and Gautam Gambhir may not have happened had the series been as important in the geopolitical sense as some of the previous series had been. Those were the series at which Gen. Musharraf used to be sighted and before him, Gen. Zia who too professed a love for the game but was not thought of as a genuine fan like one of his successors.
Afiridi has apologised for the incident, saying, "The batsmen were dominating and we were not doing well. I was angry and when Gambhir came through, I just reacted and did the wrong thing in the heat of the moment. But I regret it now. I play my cricket with lot of intensity and I was upset at my own bowling as well."
The relationship between the two teams is reported to be back to normal although Afridi and Gambhir are poorer for their conflict.
The teams have been meeting so often these days that most of the old tensions have all but disappeared. Some of it does simmer while a lot of the tension stays suppressed because the two countries place such emphasis on cricket ties. Somehow, it is not the same as when Javed Miandad used to needle his Indian opponents no end.
The generation change may also have a lot to do with the good relations that exist on the field these days. Today's cricketers, from both sides of the border, are professionals. There may be exceptions like Afridi on one side and Sreesanth on the other who are players with a quick boil temperature like volcanoes.
The players tend to put the game in front, which actually might lead to a duller tempo of play except, of course, when the tensions spill out and an ugly confrontation takes place. Being the cricketer with the street fighter's image, Miandad never seemed to mind taking on anyone. His run-in with Dennis Lillee is an unerasable vignette of the game that will always be recalled when controversies crop up.
There is a humorous story about the selection of a player called Ijaz Fakih who was said to have been brought into the team by Miandad only because he could keep calling his name as a kind of mock sledging aimed at Australian batsmen. The Karachi battler would park Fakih at short leg and keep on yelling out his name to irritate the riled batsmen.
Miandad's banter used to be a constant in days when he was the player with the most number of appearances against India. It is a different world today when umpires don't take so kindly to chatter between players of opposing teams and the ICC match referees carry codes of conduct that may have come out of Mother Teresa's manual.
Being a frontiersman of sorts, Afridi, who was born in the Khyber Agency not far from Peshawar, carries some of the characteristics of the street fighter.
"The maddest of mad Maxes" is a description that leads his profile on Cricinfo.
He was once caught digging his spikes into the pitch when a distraction was caused by a cooking gas cylinder exploding in the midst of a Test match.
The poor guy may not have known that some field cameras are permanently focused on the pitch. He paid the penalty for his naivete.
More often, he is directly confrontational than on the day he tried to sneakily help his spin colleagues through spots on the pitch.
The explosive all rounder is, however, one of the few characters in this Pakistan side who reminds us of the times when the likes of Imran Khan and Javed Miandad graced the game, or when Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were pairing up to blast batsmen as much with pace as with their colourful personalities.
The freedom India offers and their own love of glamorous Bollywood personalities combine to make their visit to the country memorable.
When Imran first came to India in 1979, he was just a fast bowler who was consumed by the need to play the best cricket against traditional Asian rivals. When he came again in 1987, he was a dedicated party animal, which, however, did not stop him from seizing a series victory, a first for Pakistan on Indian soil.
The cultural mix is somewhat different nowadays, although the suspicion is the players are more like clones than distinct individual personalities.
In this series, it has taken an Afridi or a Shoaib Akhtar to light up the cricket with the force of their personalities on and off the field. Without them, it would have been altogether too dull, even if the cricket itself is as intense as India-Pakistan contests have tended to be.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
The eyeball to eyeball confrontation between Shahid Afridi and Gautam Gambhir may not have happened had the series been as important in the geopolitical sense as some of the previous series had been. Those were the series at which Gen. Musharraf used to be sighted and before him, Gen. Zia who too professed a love for the game but was not thought of as a genuine fan like one of his successors.
Afiridi has apologised for the incident, saying, "The batsmen were dominating and we were not doing well. I was angry and when Gambhir came through, I just reacted and did the wrong thing in the heat of the moment. But I regret it now. I play my cricket with lot of intensity and I was upset at my own bowling as well."
The relationship between the two teams is reported to be back to normal although Afridi and Gambhir are poorer for their conflict.
The teams have been meeting so often these days that most of the old tensions have all but disappeared. Some of it does simmer while a lot of the tension stays suppressed because the two countries place such emphasis on cricket ties. Somehow, it is not the same as when Javed Miandad used to needle his Indian opponents no end.
The generation change may also have a lot to do with the good relations that exist on the field these days. Today's cricketers, from both sides of the border, are professionals. There may be exceptions like Afridi on one side and Sreesanth on the other who are players with a quick boil temperature like volcanoes.
The players tend to put the game in front, which actually might lead to a duller tempo of play except, of course, when the tensions spill out and an ugly confrontation takes place. Being the cricketer with the street fighter's image, Miandad never seemed to mind taking on anyone. His run-in with Dennis Lillee is an unerasable vignette of the game that will always be recalled when controversies crop up.
There is a humorous story about the selection of a player called Ijaz Fakih who was said to have been brought into the team by Miandad only because he could keep calling his name as a kind of mock sledging aimed at Australian batsmen. The Karachi battler would park Fakih at short leg and keep on yelling out his name to irritate the riled batsmen.
Miandad's banter used to be a constant in days when he was the player with the most number of appearances against India. It is a different world today when umpires don't take so kindly to chatter between players of opposing teams and the ICC match referees carry codes of conduct that may have come out of Mother Teresa's manual.
Being a frontiersman of sorts, Afridi, who was born in the Khyber Agency not far from Peshawar, carries some of the characteristics of the street fighter.
"The maddest of mad Maxes" is a description that leads his profile on Cricinfo.
He was once caught digging his spikes into the pitch when a distraction was caused by a cooking gas cylinder exploding in the midst of a Test match.
The poor guy may not have known that some field cameras are permanently focused on the pitch. He paid the penalty for his naivete.
More often, he is directly confrontational than on the day he tried to sneakily help his spin colleagues through spots on the pitch.
The explosive all rounder is, however, one of the few characters in this Pakistan side who reminds us of the times when the likes of Imran Khan and Javed Miandad graced the game, or when Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were pairing up to blast batsmen as much with pace as with their colourful personalities.
The freedom India offers and their own love of glamorous Bollywood personalities combine to make their visit to the country memorable.
When Imran first came to India in 1979, he was just a fast bowler who was consumed by the need to play the best cricket against traditional Asian rivals. When he came again in 1987, he was a dedicated party animal, which, however, did not stop him from seizing a series victory, a first for Pakistan on Indian soil.
The cultural mix is somewhat different nowadays, although the suspicion is the players are more like clones than distinct individual personalities.
In this series, it has taken an Afridi or a Shoaib Akhtar to light up the cricket with the force of their personalities on and off the field. Without them, it would have been altogether too dull, even if the cricket itself is as intense as India-Pakistan contests have tended to be.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
