BJP calls resumption of Indo-Pak cricket ties an insult to 26/11 victims; Gavaskar flays it. And we condemn it.
No Indian can forget what happened on the fateful night of 26/11 in Mumbai – A brutal terror strike, mass murder, a country under siege. Kasab’s men weren’t behind these attacks – our neighbour was. And the same country, after terming it ‘Unbelievable’ to allege its involvement in 26/11, now has the audacity to build cricket ties with India?
Many argue that politics should take its own course and cricket should be kept away from it. Exactly, that’s my point. Isn’t it a dirty political trick played by Pakistan? Have all those terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks been brought to books by Pakistan? They have coolly ignored what they were supposed to do, and India has forgotten the stand it took long back in 2008.
Now let’s come to the game.
Firstly, an India-Pakistan match doesn’t give you an adrenaline rush anymore. When Shahid Afridi calls India-Pakistan series bigger than Ashes, he is awfully mistaken. We do want to win EVERY game against Pakistan, but we DON’T want the clashes anymore.
Secondly, it’s not like we have stopped playing cricket with Pakistan altogether. The two teams clashed in the high-profile game World Cup semi-final in 2011. This March they met each other twice during the Asia Cup in Bangladesh. Therefore, there is actually no need to host them in our country and hurt the families of those who were killed without any fault.
Cricket will not lose if we play them anywhere on this planet.
In my view, you can’t play and enjoy cricket with your neighbour if the same neighbour is behind your family’s massacre…