Sadly, though not entirely unexpectedly, common sense has lost out to politics. India and Pakistan won’t be playing any cricket against each other in 2015 (or presumably for the foreseeable future). That, it would appear, is a gift Santa Claus decided not to place under the Christmas trees of cricket-lovers across the globe.
While Pakistan pushed and pushed for the series, India chose to respond with silence. The BCCI said it sent a proposal for a short series (rumoured to be played in Sri Lanka) to the government, but the government was mum on the subject and simply allowed the clock to run out.
While I don’t believe sports and politics should never mix – for example, the ban on cricket tours to apartheid South Africa was the right thing to do, the current approach of playing Pakistan in international tournaments, including on Indian soil, but not bilateral tours is absurd (something BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur has also pointed out). It is also unclear that not playing Pakistan achieves anything diplomatically. It appears mainly to be political posturing.
In the meantime, the damage it is doing to India-Pakistan cricket is significant. Did you know that Misbah-ul-Haq has never led Pakistan in a Test against India? Did you know that MS Dhoni never led India in a Test against Pakistan? Thanks to politics, India’s most successful Test captain never duelled with the old enemy and Misbah, Pakistan’s most successful captain with 20 Test victories, will now likely share the same fate. Neither man, despite all their considerable accomplishments, have any tales to tell their grandchildren of battling each other on the Test stage.
Is this not also a kind of tragedy?
While the short series the BCCI proposed would still have been something to cheer, what fans and players of both countries deserve is a full series, like the one India just played against South Africa.
How wonderful would it be to watch Virat Kohil, all fire and energy, up against the unflapppable Misbah? Not quite fire against ice, because ice melts, but fire against granite, cool and unyielding. Would Kohli be able to turn up the heat enough to cause Misbah’s granite exterior to crack? Or would Kohli end up exhausted from hurling himself against an immovable object?
Think also of Younis Khan, that battle-scarred warrior, taking on India’s match-winner in R Ashwin. Spin holds no terrors for Younis, who will not lose the mental battle in the way South Africa’s batsmen did in India. He will not be stuck in his crease waiting for the ball with his name on it. It will be up to Ashwin to find a way to break his defences through intelligent and skillful bowling. Even then is no telling whether he would succeed or not.
If Ashwin does succeed, he will then have to contend with Misbah, who might be the hardest batsman in the world to dislodge. Somehow Misbah has managed to prevent the weight of his times from overwhelming him or wearing him down. Instead, like a forest receiving rainfall, he has absorbed it and been reinvigorated, averaging 56.67 with the captaincy compared to 33.60 without it. It would be a fitting examination of Ashwin’s considerable gifts.
In Yasir Shah, Pakistan have their own spin wizard, who has been taking wickets at a faster clip than Ashwin (and faster than anyone over the last 100 years to this point in his career). India have been notoriously fragile against spin in recent years and Yasir would be their biggest threat yet. He would test every aspect of India’s batting, from temperament to technique. If the likes of Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara are not at their best, they could find their stay at the crease is nasty, brutish and short.
Lest we forget, both sides have a few decent fast bowlers in their armouries as well. Picture Shikhar Dhawan and his moustache staring down the giant Mohammad Irfan. Or Murali Vijay elegantly leaving a swinging delivery from Wahab Riaz. On the other side, you could have Umesh Yadav forcing Mohammad Hafeez to take evasive action or Varun Aaron hustling Azhar Ali into a false stroke.
So many possibilities then, but if only if India and Pakistan are allowed to play each other, especially in Test cricket, which they have not done for eight long years now.
In my imagination, which is all I am left with now, the teams are playing a three-Test series. India win the first on the back of a century from Virat Kohli, fifties from Rahane and Pujara, and eight wickets from Ashwin. Pakistan take the second, with Misbah and Younis making hundreds and Yasir running riot.
The third and deciding Test goes to the final day. Pakistan need 23 runs to win but are down to their last wicket. Misbah is still at the crease, of course, keeping defeat at bay and victory in sight. Kohli has catchers all around the wicket, as Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja try to pick one last lock.
You can fill in your own ending but whichever result you choose, wouldn’t it have been something to tell the grandchildren about?