Trial..and Terror

The attack on the Lankan team, on that March morning in Lahore, will live on as one of the more chilling "where were you when it happened?" moments in the lives of cricket junkies. Me, I was at an evening training session at my office in Sacramento, and was switching back and forth between the Powerpoint presentation and Cricinfo's coverage of the NZ-India one-dayer on my laptop. Naturally, my attention was neither here nor there, and though I did read Cricinfo's sudden announcement, it didn't fully register at the time. I assumed it was just another bombing in Pakistan, with the Lankans happening to be in the vicinity. After the usual haranguing, the tour would probably be called off. Ho hum. It was only when I reached home an hour later that I read the bold print.

Like everyone else who gives a damn, I'm devastated, particularly for those who lost their lives in the shootout. My cousin Swaroop has nicely summed up the whole gamut of emotions most of us have been through in the last forty-eight hours. He says, "what seemed like a sacred line has now been irremediably crossed", and here lies the key; the cricketing world's naive assumption that the players are somehow immune and untouchable is partly to do with the nature of the cricket fan himself, his propensity to put cricket on a higher plane, and his conviction that cricket is above things as earthly as territorial and ideological conflict. Our lot were brought back to earth with a rude bang, weren't we? Significantly, for me, the targets were the Sri Lankans - the nice guys of cricket. Not that it matters, but if it had been the Indians, or any of the (predominantly) white countries' players on the receiving end, the real issue would have been clouded by conspiracy theory suggestions and much general bullshit. But Sri Lanka? The statement has been made. Coming from agents of chaos, it might as well be the Joker's line: "You know the thing about chaos? It's fair."

I'm also confused, for I fear for what repercussions this might have. In the recent past, something of a pattern had been established when it came to matters of touring Pakistan under political unrest; while the subcontinent had no qualms about touring and were almost vocal in their support for the neighbour, the rest of the world were mostly quick to pull out - only adding weight to the whole east-west divide that has become ingrained in the mental makeup of us fans. India's proposed tour this year was called off as fallout of the Mumbai attacks last November. But the dreaded question must now be asked; what about tours to India? The argument that cricket has hitherto been unaffected by surrounding instability no longer holds. Despite what happened in Mumbai, as Indians we would all like to believe that we shouldn't be painted with the same brush as Pakistan when it comes to analysing safety issues. Admittedly, (in view of the lapses in Mumbai) it is far more trivial to protect a cricket team than an entire city. But - and this applies to the rest of the world too - trained terrorists are like rats, they get anywhere and everywhere. The bottom line is, if any players decide to back out of touring India in the near future, we can't argue against it.

And what of Pakistan cricket, and the long-suffering Pakistani fan? At the risk of sounding insensitive, the incident was a somehow darkly appropriate culmination of a miserable two year period for one of the cricketing world's more vibrant teams, a period which has seen the game in this country not so much raped as eroded. The World Cup, Bob Woolmer's death, the ICL exodus, Mohd. Yousuf's about turn, the captaincy issues, the Asif drugs scandal, Shoaib Akhtar, Geoff Lawson's axing, a complete absence of quality pitches, the absence of spectators for test cricket, the absence of test cricket itself in 2008...

It will take a minor miracle to climb out of that mire. All along, the PCB didn't help matters much with its own incompetence and infighting, and they are now faced with the knowledge that the security they had to offer came up short. Unfortunately, it may be that cricket in the region is no longer the master of its fate. It has finally come to this, a situation where the game finds itself dependent on factors outside the control of fans and administrators, and that's a scary thought indeed.