Among the many routine pronouncements of vacuous sentimentalism proffered by pro-Pakistan peaceniks in India, there is one that centres on the game of cricket. This is the view that if there was never a partition of India, the cricket team fielded by a united India would have been the best in the world.
Imagine, the ‘Aman ki Asha’ brigade says, if the vaunted Indian batting order containing the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag was paired with a bowling line-up consisting of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Co., how great that team would have been.
On the face of it, this seems like a very compelling view. The amount of cricket talent that these two countries possess is unmatched by any other region of the world. India has been the land of great batsmen since the early 1970s, when Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanath came to the fore. Similarly, Pakistan has been blessed by incomparable skill in the pace-bowling department, from the times of Sarfaraz Nawaz and Imran Khan.
While India has a longer and more illustrious history of great spinners, Pakistan has also produced some great tweakers in Abdul Qadir and Saqlain Mushtaq.
So, are the Indian doves right in imagining a theoretical cricket team of a united India as being world-conquering, on par with the great West Indies teams of the 1970s and 80s and the Australians of early to mid-2000s?
Well, the constant tumult in Pakistan cricket over the years should come as a much-needed dose of realism for these overzealous optimists. The Indian team has been very successful across formats for over a decade and Pakistan cricket has gone through crisis after crisis in the same period.
But the variance of results isn’t the only thing that should shatter the myth of an imagined India-Pakistan team being invincible. There are more reasons why Indian cricket fans should thank their stars that their cricket team operates in a different environment compared to the Pakistan side.
Not so fast!
In cricket, like in most team sports, a unit can be more than the sum of its parts. Just having a galaxy of stars isn’t enough to make a team successful. The team environment and culture, not to mention the attitudes of players, is as vital as raw talent.
This is where the mirage of a hypothetical Indo-Pak cricket team runs into the rocks of reality. Pakistan cricket has witnessed the most poisonous and vitriolic atmosphere among all major cricketing nations in the world. There is endless sniping from former and out-of-favour cricketers against incumbent team members almost on a daily basis.
Take for instance, Umar Akmal. When it comes to talent, he was even more blessed than Virat Kohli. But his attitude, which has been downright vexatious, has led to his career going belly-up. From blaming former coach Waqar Younis publicly for forcing him to keep wickets, to complaining to Imran Khan about not being given the No. 3 slot in the batting order, his was a comic, if not tragic, tale of wasted potential.
The disrespect meted out to coaches in the Pakistan setup was once spectacularly captured on camera when Shoaib Akhtar was seen screaming at Bob Woolmer during a Test in South Africa. Akhtar even now goes around blaming everyone but himself for failing to live up to his potential.
Then, there is the weird case of Mohammed Amir. Banned for spot-fixing, he was rehabilitated. However, he retired, blaming the system for not supporting him. He then came back into the team again, supposedly now at peace with the system.
These are just some of the examples that illustrate how Pakistan’s cricket community is in a perpetual state of disorder. The Pakistan Cricket Board has been witnessing more rapid changes in their leadership than Pakistani politics. The domestic structure has been altered and modified more times than anyone can remember.
Causes for tumult in Pakistan cricket
Whenever the Pakistan team suffers a major defeat, the news channels of the country turn into an arena for former cricketers to run down the current players in a most brutal manner. It’s great for comic relief if you are an outsider.
There seems to be an underlying current of anger and vitriol in Pakistan cricket which makes everyone blood-thirsty in their criticism.
The West Indies has often been seen as a cricket entity where forging unity is a big challenge. Clive Lloyd is known to have ensured that West Indian players sharing rooms belonged to different nations, in order to make the team united. But Pakistan cricket and its endless shenanigans make West Indies cricket look as tranquil as the scenery from those islands.
The ever-present dispute in that country’s cricket circles is the running rivalry between Punjab and Sindh, or more precisely, Lahore and Karachi.
The Sindh cricket community has felt unfairly treated by the Punjabis. The latest example of this was the sacking of Sarfaraz Ahmed (from Karachi) as the captain of Pakistan team. Sarfaraz, who led his team to the title in the 2017 Champions Trophy, lost his own form and saw a series of crucial defeats at the helm of the team. When he was justifiably sacked in 2019, the murmurs of Punjabis having it in for the Karachi lot went around.
Compare this to the situation in India where, with the odd exception, leading players continue to treat their peers and successors with utmost respect. Yograj Singh may continue to abuse MS Dhoni but Yuvraj Singh has never uttered a word against him.
The golden generation of Indian cricket – Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman, Kumble, Sehwag, Harbhajan – have been the perfect role models for youngsters, devoid of any of moral failures that besets sporting stars the world over.
Indian former captains speak very carefully when assessing their successors, even if the latter are struggling. Compared to that, Pakistani television is full of ex-captains running down the current leader and adding a few salty words to boot.
It’s worth noting that Pakistan actually performed really well in the 2010-2017 phase, immediately after the spot-fixing controversy. The main reason for this was their captain, Misbah-ul-Haq.
The unassuming and soft-spoken skipper presided over a period in Pakistan cricket where they were without the flamboyance that is associated with the country’s cricket. It was a team of unheralded and underappreciated stars who got the job done and, at one stage, became the No. 1 Test side in the world.
This serenity is in stark contrast to what Pakistan cricket had become known for and it was refreshing. But it went away as soon as Misbah retired.
One can also argue that the Indian domestic cricket structure, centred around the Ranji Trophy, has worked way better than the ever-changing dynamic of Pakistan’s domestic cricket. But those things can be fixed.
What cannot be fixed is the culture of mutual respect and discipline that has been engendered and nourished by successive generations of Indian cricketers. This culture of modesty and humility is truly Indian. Sachin Tendulkar making an obeisance to the pitch after playing his final Test or the Indian team calling Anil Kumble into the dressing room to hold the World Cup trophy after their 2011 win are examples of that.
Now, imagine if India and Pakistan remained undivided. Imagine all the vicissitudes and troubles of Pakistan cricket afflicting India as well. Imagine former cricketers sniping at the present ones and coaches being abused by players. That wouldn’t have created an environment conducive to the making of a world-beating team.
So, next time a placard-holder tells of how great an India-Pakistan joint team of an undivided nation would have been, treat them with the same indifference that such people are these days.