After a six year hiatus, Cricket returns to Pak as Zimbabwe's cricket team is touring Pakistan, the first Test-playing nation to visit the country in six years. It is reported that thousands of security personnel were deployed as the team were taken from Lahore airport to a city hotel. Pakistan has hosted no top-level international cricket since Sri Lanka's team bus was attacked by gunmen in Lahore in 2009. Six policemen died. Zimbabwe and Pakistan will play two T20 matches and three one-day internationals starting on Friday. Pakistan have named two uncapped players for the T20 games - all-rounder Imad Wasim, who was born in Swansea, Wales, and opener Nauman Anwar. Television channels offered live coverage of the arrival of the Zimbabweans - most playing famous Bollywood songs about the "home coming of the beloved" in the background. The tickets for the first match T20 reportedly has been ‘ sold out ’ !
Meantime, the
International Cricket Council [ICC] has refused to send any match officials to
Pakistan for the series with Zimbabwe because of security concerns. The ICC
said it decided in April that the mandatory requirement of neutral umpires for
international matches would be waived due to security conditions in Pakistan
should the series go ahead.
The Zimbabwean
visit is being seen as a major test as the country seeks to end its sporting
isolation. According to BBC, thousands have been killed in recent years in
Pakistan's militant violence, which continues to rage despite a military
offensive in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. A sectarian bus massacre in
Karachi last week highlighted the security risks.
Back home, there is
no Pak player in IPL - Pakistani players
would only be able to play in the Indian Premier League once bilateral cricket
ties with India were restored on a permanent basis, according to a Pakistan
Cricket Board official, PTI reported. As a norm, every time a bilateral series planned it is normal for
both boards to first get clearance from the Government. The
political relationship has not changed and perhaps it is still time not ripe for including Pakistan players in IPL
franchisees. The Pak players did themselves nothing good by
making some anti-rhetoric immediately after they were neglected…… but when it
is so – what is the rhyme and reason in having Pak in commentary box and in the
middle…. You have Pak umpires in the
middle – Ramiz Raja commenting; Wasim
Akram providing expert tips - …….. do you see any logic in that ?
It is quite a queer
coincidence that on a day when reports were doing the rounds of India and
Pakistan agreeing to play a cricket series in UAE in December this year, yet
another dastardly terror attack took place against Indian interests in
Afghanistan around the same time. No prizes for guessing identity of the real
perpetrators as Pakistan has been known to have choreographed a wave of similar
terror attacks in Afghanistan, reports First Post.
In Afghanistan, a
suicide bombing attack near Kabul's international airport occurred on 17th
May 2015. Four Indians including a woman
and one American were among 14 people killed after gunmen stormed a guest house
in Kabul where a party of foreigners was going on. Indian ambassador in
Afghanistan Amar Sinha was the real target of this attack but he escaped as he
decided at the eleventh hour to skip the party where he was a prominent
invitee. At least twelve people were injured and 54 hostages were rescued as
Afghan special forces retook the guest house, situated close to a UN office and
a diplomatic compound, in an operation that took several hours in clearing the
building room by room. The bloodiest terror attack on Indian interests in
Afghanistan took place in July 2008 when
a suicide car bomb attack was launched near the gates of Indian embassy in
Kabul, killing 58 people, including Indian defence attache Brigadier Ravi Datt
Mehta and Indian diplomat V Venkateswara Rao. Besides two ITBP officers, Ajai
Pathania and Roop Singh, were among the four Indians killed in the attack.
A New York Times
report had then quoted US intelligence officials as suggesting that the ISI had
planned the attack, though Pakistan refuted the claim. A report in The Sunday
Times had said that then US president George W Bush confronted Pakistani prime
minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and stated that in the case of another such attack
he would have to take "serious action". American intelligence agencies have time and
again suggested that Pakistan’s ISI was behind many of the attacks. But no
action has been taken by the Obama administration on the ground to declare
Pakistan a ‘Terror State’ or a ‘Failed State’ or a ‘Rogue State’. WikiLeaks had
named Pakistan’s ISI as a terrorist organization. In 2010 Pentagon had
acknowledged that some elements in Pakistan’s ISI were cooperating with
terrorist groups to counter US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Indian interests in
Afghanistan have repeatedly been hit by terrorists, mostly inspired by
Pakistan-aided terror outfits. Pakistani state and non-state actors are
repeatedly targeting Indian interests in Afghanistan to demoralise Indian
government from carrying out developmental work in Afghanistan. These are bound
to continue as long as Pakistan is going to act as a safe haven to anti-India
elements like Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi and continues to harbour
India’s most wanted like Dawood Ibrahim.
Pakistan talks of
‘talks’ on the one hand and sponsors such attacks on the other. It should be
that ‘terror and cricket or any other game for that matter’ cannot go together
– there is no point in playing when bi-lateral relations are good. Cricket
should take the back seat, Nation is the priority.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
20th May 2015.
