By: Asem Mustafa Awan
Indians’ extremist voices against Pakistan cricket with deep-rooted hostilities were all silenced when Team Green made the history of an emphatic win in the T20 World Cup at Dubai over hostile neighbor India saving all ten wickets to stun the world.
Babar Azam, Rizwan and Shaheen Afridi played the role of demolition men for India, which were spellbound by their epic display of skills. The intense emotions between the two sides are no secret and India has always taken things to an extreme level with digging up the pitch, Hindu-Muslim riots and even threatening the Pakistani players. The rivalry of the two nations always touches the peak whenever the two teams match for any game, let alone cricket. Sunday’s match was Pakistan’s opener in the T20 World Cup against archrival India. Indians left no stone unturned in harming the sport, the heartthrob of millions before coming to the pitch.
The Indian maneuvers and propaganda to malign Pakistan were replied befittingly when Pakistan launched its Babar and Shaheen. Indian extremist organization Shiv Sena with Bal Thakray as head, though dead now made headlines in the nineties when he along with his goons were responsible for digging up the pitch and making death threats to the Pakistan cricket team. The so-called cricket diplomacy took birth amid the military build-up on borders initially provoked by India. It is also worth mentioning here that whenever the Indian team visited Pakistan they were always given a rousing reception. Indian players are always welcome in Pakistan. Most of time they feel their heart sway as people of Pakistan value and honour guests be that rival on other fronts. On contrary Pakistani players always meted with unwanted treatment at the hands of the Indian law enforcement agencies and extremist religious parties.
Pakistan-India match in Dubai was entirely sold out in advance as fans were dubbing it as ‘clash of the titans.’ The extremist Hindus made vociferous demands for boycotting the Pakistan match even after the game was already on.
This is not all the only Muslim player Muhammad Shami in the Indian team has been given expletives from entire India besides being branded as a ‘traitor’. Such is the level of hostility India harbours against Pakistan as well as Muslims. Pakistan was thrown into isolation by the cricketing world after a terrorist attack on visiting the Sri Lankan team in Lahore some 12 years back. Above all India capitalized the terror incident against Pakistan at every forum. Similar efforts were made, of late, when New Zealand went back after playing even a single match on the pretext of security concerns in Pakistan and England men’s and women squads also postponed their visits citing the same reasons.
Pakistani authorities have already unearthed the whole conspiracy and all clues of hatching it point towards India.
It is high time for Prime Minister Imran Khan who is a legend in cricket and Ramiz Raja the new Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board to lead the team to regain its lost glory not only in cricket but also in other games with national game hockey on top of them.
The writer is a Special Correspondent at The Dayspring
