You don’t need to be a former international cricketer or even a cricketing expert to realise that what the Indian cricket team did at the end of their match with Pakistan in the Asia Cup was just not cricket.
Many arguments can be used against the Indian team’s unsportsmanlike behaviour. Let’s start with the most obvious observations: If you’re going to boycott another country’s sports team, then do it fully — don’t play at all. But if you have decided to play the match against what you have deemed as an enemy country, then do it as if it’s a sport and not a war. And at least in cricket, which includes the shaking of hands by opposing team members once a match is over.
India seems to have conveniently forgotten that not one country in the world — not even its erstwhile allies — bought its narrative that Pakistan or anyone from or linked to Pakistan was behind the Pahalgam attack. In fact, Pakistan even offered to be part of a comprehensive inquiry into the matter as long as it would be carried out by an independent and neutral party.
As for Indian T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav’s remarks to the media at the post-match ceremony, if he is so committed to playing to the war drums galleries, then he should perhaps leave cricket, which is still a sport, and join the Indian army.
Despite not presenting an iota of evidence — something that even India’s own main opposition parties conceded — the BJP government carried out an attack on Pakistan in which many precious lives were lost and there was public and private damage.
India was certainly not the victim in this, but rather the thwarted aggressor. This is, in fact, right out of the Israel playbook, which used exactly the same justification after it attacked Qatar. It painted itself as a victim and claimed that it was only trying to attack those who had attacked it — conveniently forgetting the tens of thousands of Palestinians, including thousands of children — that it has killed in Gaza in the past almost two years.
This is not all. The way the mainstream Indian media whipped up jingoistic sentiment and the way in which some well-known Indian TV news anchors mocked former Indian cricketers for “not speaking out against the match” was absurd — and that is putting it mildly.
It was absurd because it wasn’t former Indian cricketers like Sourav Ganguly or Rahul Dravid who had given the go-ahead for the Indian cricket team to play the match, but the BJP government itself. And here was mainstream Indian media — generally referred to as ‘Godi Media’ for being in Modi’s lap — ignoring that fact and mocking former Indian cricketers for not taking a stand. They also overlooked the fact that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is usually run by an individual seen as close to the ruling party.
In contrast to that, despite the fact that Pakistan was attacked without India presenting any proof of its involvement in the Pahalgam attack, and even though it gave a sound beating to the Indian air force shooting down as many seven of its fighter jets, including three prized Rafales, the Pakistan media did not beat any war drums or ask its cricketers to not play matches with India. It also did not ask the Pakistan government to stop the national cricket team from playing India, rightly suggesting that sport and politics do not and should not mix.
Following the match, the Pakistan Cricket Board rightly filed a complaint with the International Cricket Council (ICC), asking it to hold the Indian team in violation of the Code of Conduct, which also stipulates that members of opposing teams shake hands after the end of a game.
Of course, given that the ICC is by and large considered to be completely subservient to the whims of the Indian cricket board and given that the ICC is now being run by Jay Shah, who is Indian home minister Amit Shah’s son, it is very unlikely that the ICC will act on Pakistan’s complaint.
The actions of India’s cricket players have brought the game of cricket into disrepute and have also lowered their own stature in the eyes of the cricketing world. Several former cricketers, as well as commentators and journalists covering the sport, have unequivocally come out in condemnation of the refusal by the Indian cricket team to shake hands with the Pakistani team after their match.
This has shown India to be a country that is unable to separate politics from sport and also one that is either unable or unwilling to respect its opponents. After all, even in a war, an honourable soldier would show respect to a worthy adversary.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.
The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. He tweets/posts omar_quraishi and can be reached at: omarrquraishigmail.com