Will India's 2023 Colombo win have Miandad's 1986 effect?
Lose and hell breaks loose, more so in this age of social media nuisance as the target is almost pushed into jumping off the nearest highrise.
Emotions, expectations, politics… It’s such a combustible mix that only a superhuman will not feel the pressure in an India vs Pakistan match. Non-cricket considerations appear to get the upperhand.
That the face-offs over the 22 yards are so infrequent (no bilateral series or match after 2012-2013) doesn’t help.
Naturally, then, succeed either as a team or an individual and you become taller than the rest by many feet.
By the time I was 12, India and Pakistan had fought each other in two wars – 1965, 1971. Those born after Kargil, in 1999, haven’t experienced anything.
Usually, that lot is the one spitting most of venom on social media. Recent sufferers include Mohammed Shami and Arshdeep Singh.
I remember nothing of 1965, but the air raid sirens, blackouts, black sheets on windows, taping alphabet X on windows to minimise the spread of shards of glass, top half of headlights painted black…
Those two-three weeks in December 1971 are fresh in memory.
As also the news bulletins on AIR and the extensive coverage in The Statesman, then an institution.
So, in my most impressionable age, Pakistan was widely seen as the “dushman mulk,” the description Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Zaka Ashraf reserved for India not long ago.
It was a most ill-timed and insensitive comment, for which Ashraf was rightly pilloried. He did retract, but the damage done by such foolishness can never be undone.
There was no India vs Pakistan cricket during the years I was growing up, but The Statesman would publish extensive reports of County games, making me familiar with Majid Khan and Zaheer Abbas, Mushtaq Mohammad and Imran Khan.
Majid, a marvellous hooker in the pre-helmet era, is a batsman I admired immensely. However, he is the reclusive type. But Mushybhai, Zed and Skip (Imran) have been dear friends with plenty of affection towards me.
It’s sad that Imran, quite easily the most popular politician in Pakistan at this point in time, is in prison when the Shaheen Shah Afridis play the biggest match of their careers, in Ahmedabad.
I was 19 when bilateral cricket with Pakistan resumed, after ages, in 1978-1979. From then on, India vs Pakistan engagements have, exclusively, depended on the chill/thaw in relations between New Delhi and Islamabad.
Yet, we keep talking of seting cricket from politics. It’s impossible in the context of India and Pakistan.
The first India vs Pakistan ODI I got to report on (for The Telegraph) was the first-ever under lights in India, not at an established cricket ground but at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi.
That September 21, 1983 ODI, India’s first after winning the World Cup, was in aid of the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. On the field, however, nobody was charitable.
Kapil Dev’s men managed a narrow win, thanks to cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad, who shone with ball and bat.
I have, thereafter, reported on umpteen India vs Pakistan ODIs, including five in 50-over World Cups.
My World Cup memories…
1992, Sydney: India won by 43 runs, Sachin Tendulkar MoM (54).
What I recall most is Javed Miandad’s buffoonery shortly before getting out and the manner in which captain Imran blasted him in the dressing room.
1999, Manchester: India won by 47 runs, Venkatesh Prasad MoM (five for 27). At least I won’t forget that June 8 face-off, as it was during the Kargil war, with plenty of tension before, during and after the game. To the credit of both captains, Mohammed Azharuddin and Wasim Akram, their teams didn’t show the enormous rumbling within.
2003, Centurion: Sourav Ganguly’s India had no choice, only full points mattered. It was a terrific ODI, with Sachin (98), Yuvraj Singh (50 n.o.) and Rahul Dravid (40 n.o.) scripting a one-for-the-ages chase. India won by six wickets, Sachin MoM. Plenty to remember 20 years on, but nothing beats Sachin’s slashed six off Shoaib Akhtar over point! Shoaib was fiery almost throughout that World Cup. Top lesson: Never intimidate The Master.
2011, Mohali: India won the semi-final by 29 runs, Sachin MoM (85). Adjoining Chandigarh, where the teams stayed, was taken over by security forces from the previous day as the then Prime Ministers, Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gillani, were to watch the match. It was, after all, again time for cricket diplomacy. Cricket had been the excuse for late General Zia-ul Haq to grace the Jaipur Test in early 1987 and have a ‘summit’ with late Rajiv Gandhi. Fortunate to have been present both times.
2015, Adelaide: India won by a massive 76 runs, Virat Kohli MoM (107). Suresh Raina and Shikhar Dhawan too contributed big, each getting a 70, then Mohammed Shami garnered four wickets. South Australia’s capital, by the way, is among my favourite cities. As for the Adelaide Oval, it features in my top-three grounds (others being Lord’s, Newlands).
After that recap, I have to mention…
Most fascinating bilateral ODI series: India, under Sourav, winning 3-2 on the 2003-2004 tour of Pakistan. India’s sensational win in the opening game, in Karachi, set the tone. It’s one match I enjoyed covering from ball No.1… The National Stadium crowd was sporting throughout, quite like Chennai’s Chepauk during the 1998-1999 Test series. India won in Karachi, lost in Chennai.
Most surreal ODI win over Pakistan: By 228 runs, in Colombo, on September 10 in the 2023 Asia Cup. Centurions Virat and KL Rahul as also Kuldeep Yadav’s five wickets first pummelled and then bamboozled Babar Azam’s men. Unlikely that the deep scars have disappeared in a month.
Most nightmarish ODI loss at Pakistan’s hands: Has to be the Austral-Asia Cup final in Sharjah on April 18, 1986. Miandad’s last-ball six off Chetan Sharma demoralised India for years. Indeed, years. With the pendulum swinging this way and that, I recall I was dumbstruck, unable to work on my typewriter (in the apology of a Media box) for quite a while.
Have really gone back decades… Lekin, aaj kya hoga?
FOOTNOTE: Rohit Sharma won the toss, opting to bowl. Shubman Gill makes a return, Ishan Kishan out. Pakistan XI unchanged.
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