India, Pakistan and the uncertainty around bilateral cricket - this too shall pass?

Picture this: India and Pakistan are two of the best cricketing outfits on the planet. They have a plethora of stars in their respective line-ups. Both teams, as part of a cricketing crescendo, are slated to play each other thrice to determine who the best in the business is.

One of those games is set to happen at the Wankhede Stadium – a ground that has seen countless fairy tales reach a conclusion. One is primed to take place at the National Stadium in Karachi. And if India and Pakistan still can’t be separated, a third and decisive encounter will be played out at a neutral venue.

Both teams, because of the stature of the contest, put out what seems their first-choice eleven. The fans have travelled miles to just witness it all. There’s someone who has flown down from Chennai to watch India battle Pakistan in Karachi. And, there is someone from Multan who has travelled to Mumbai. Not just to see what the two continental rivals have in store for each other, but also to soak in the inimitable atmosphere attached to a rendition of the India-Pakistan rivalry.

Seems pretty fun, eh?

Till a decade ago, this was what was happening – far beyond the realms of just imagination and materializing into actual reality. India. Pakistan. The fierceness of their cricketing feud. The follies of a high-pressure environment. And the greatest spectacle of cricketing abilities.

These teams still lock horns with each other, although that has been reduced to ICC events. In 2022, there will not be a dearth of India-Pakistan cricketing action, with the men’s teams participating in two installments (at the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup), and the women’s sides engaging each other at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

But like most things in this world, this story too has a specific spin attached to it. There are factors – factors much beyond the control of cricketing boards, even as powerful as the BCCI, that can't let this version of paradise manifest often.

It is what it is. In fact, it has been this way for the better part of a decade and more. This conversation, regarding how India and Pakistan’s cricketing ties should veer towards resumption, has been had many times before as well. The key to going deeper this time, though, is a simple message of support tweeted by Babar Azam for his long-time cricketing rival Virat Kohli.

For most players, it might not even become news. Kohli, like several cricketers in the past, is undergoing a rough patch. Runs have been hard to come by. Edges have almost always fallen into safe hands, and question marks over his place in the team have never been as deafening as they are right now.

But for Babar to tweet something in support of him? The Babar Azam of Pakistan. Someone who has regularly been pitted against Kohli to find who the most gifted batter of this generation is. Something must not be broken then, right? Something the trolls and the façade of social media can’t really fathom?

In the past few years, social media has become a fad. And despite the vices it carries, it has largely been considered a good thing for this planet. What’s worrying, though, is that it has become a common tool to propagate or even spew hatred. Not just between two countries. But between almost everything that offers a cause of division.

Kohli has, since the start of 2020, been in wretched touch. He will be the first to admit it too, and he might not mind constructive criticism that suggests he might be doing India more harm than good at the moment. If you read social media, however, you’ll feel that he hasn’t scored a run since the end of the Second World War.

Should India and Pakistan play cricket more often?

The more damning assessment is of how these India-Pakistan ties have stuttered, just because that has become the dominant narrative everywhere. On social media. On roads. In houses. In air-conditioned sea-facing offices.

A few people might have different opinions on what a particular country is doing to another, especially in areas where security remains paramount. But this is, at the cost of sounding dramatic, not really the fraternising with the enemy it is being made out to be. Under that cloak of fear and uncertainty, there are cricketers on both sides of the border. In India and in Pakistan - humans who are longing for an opportunity to test their skills against the best and make their country proud.

There’s nothing wrong in having the needle. Australia and England have had it. Banter has never been too far away, and that extra edge is what makes that rivalry what it is. Ask any Manchester United fan what it is like to defeat Liverpool and they would say it’s the best thing in the world. Ask any Chelsea fan if they would fancy getting the better of Tottenham Hotspur, especially after the Battle of the Bridge in 2016, they’d bite your hands off. That’s what makes these sporting feuds tick.

Not the hatred on social media. Not the narrative that paints everyone on the other side of the border as enemies. Just the incentive of being better than them on a particular day and showing that the hours of hard work has a tangible result to back it up.

So, it was quite revealing when Babar tweeted in support of the former India captain. It might’ve just been a contemporary trying to console his rival that things will be alright again. But when viewed in the India-Pakistan backdrop, it was, perhaps, one of the most important bits of social media in recent times.

That, by the way, is the power of social media. It has the power to change lives, opinions and thought-processes. If Babar can positively tweak it, by just putting out a six-word tweet, imagine the damage the same vehicle could cause when used to do things that it ought to not indulge in.

It’s a fine line between wanting the best for your country and extreme jingoism. Cricket, as you might’ve guessed by now, has suffered. But as Babar said on Thursday, this too shall pass. Not just to Kohli. Metaphorically, he perhaps even hoped that India and Pakistan could get back to playing cricket more regularly and bilaterally.

That, unfortunately, remains a long, lung-busting discussion for another day (or week or month or even years). For now, it’s probably prudent to rejoice that the cricketers are illustrating that sports cut across boundaries, and that it can be used to bring people together and restore faith in a solution that has remained elusive.

A few tweets by Babar for Kohli on social media, and vice-versa. The unbridled joy of India-Pakistan cricket. The bravery and courage to see through what threatens to unnecessarily darken the horizon. This could, in fact, push the realms of imagination and make bilateral India-Pakistan cricketing ties a reality again.

This too shall pass then, as Babar said? Well, you’d at least hope it does.