Cricket casts ominous shadow on worsening India-Pak ties (Feature)

By Nadeem Sarwar Jan 22, 2010, 6:04 GMT

Islamabad - Cricket has traditionally brought the millions of hearts in South Asian rivals India and Pakistan closer and even averted a war in the sub-continent in the mid-1980s, but the same game is now putting ties under further strain.

Angry fans burnt effigies of Indian officials in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore to protest the snubbing of Pakistani players from India's richest cricket competition - the Indian Premier League (IPL) - early this week, while the country's parliament announced it was calling off a scheduled visit of its members to New Delhi.

'Many Pakistanis are taking it as an insult for the nation that their cricket heroes were denied access to IPL,' said Rasool Bux Raees, a political scientist at the prestigious Lahore University of Management Science.

'And the angry national mood here will dent efforts to develop stronger cultural and diplomatic contact between India and Pakistan.'

None of the eight teams that compete at the T20 multi-million-dollar IPL managed to bid for any of the 11 Pakistani players in an auction on January 19, mainly due to the threats from the Hindu militant groups like Navnirman Sena and Shiv Sena to disrupt the matches if Pakistani players were included.

The two groups are known for their extremist religious views and occasional atrocities committed against the Muslim and Christian minorities. They have previously assaulted Pakistani artists performing in India.

Together with Indian nationalist Bhartia Janta Party, these Hindu fanatic groups are pressing the Indian government for a harder stance towards Pakistan since 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed at least 166 people.

The brutal attacks that were allegedly carried out by Pakistan-based Islamic terrorists strained the relations between the two South Asian neighbours, with the New Delhi ceasing a vital peace process with Islamabad. That bitterness still holds.

The Times of India reported Thursday that another apprehension for the franchisers was that the Indian government refused to give guarantees for the visa and other diplomatic clearances for the Pakistani players.

The Indian Foreign Ministry rejected the report on the same day.

'The participation or absence of Pakistani cricketers in a commercial event of the nature of IPL is ... a matter not within the purview of the government,' said a ministry's statement.

'Blaming the government for the absence of Pakistani players from the next edition of IPL is unfortunate,' the statement said further.

But the explanation might not sooth many in Pakistan where sentiments are running high because of the humiliation of its national heroes at the hands of Indians.

The opposition leader in Pakistan's National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, demanded a ban on Pakistan's 'sports interaction' with India and a complete halt to the exhibition of Bollywood movies in the country.

Pakistan's Sports Minister Ijaz Jakhrani urged the nation not to watch the IPL matches, while the association of country's Cable Operator Association called for a complete blackout of the games.

Pakistan's affected players and other members of the country's T20 world champion team, vowed to never again participate in the IPL that is followed with great interest in both countries, where cricket has the status of a religion.

Sohail Tanveer, Pakistani all rounder and the top player at the first IPL tournament in 2008, said 'nothing was more important than my respect and country's honour.' He was among the 11 Pakistani players rejected in the auction.

'I think the Indian authorities were not serious to make sure that the Pakistani players are treated in the same way as other international players,' said Imtiaz Alam, an analyst and secretary general of South Asian Free Media Association.

'Actually, there are the bigger players to this game and these are the military establishments in India and Pakistan that are less interested in the improvement of relations between the two countries,' Alam added.

He said unless there was a major move to resume the peace process at state levels, things like the expulsion of Pakistani players from IPL would continue to happen.