November 29, 2008
Mumbai Terrorism and The Threat to Sports
By Steven StarkThe history of modern sports is the history of an enterprise that, for the most part, has managed to shoulder on despite whatever is happening in the world. During World War II there were no Olympics or soccer World Cup but those were the exceptions. Major league baseball persevered throughout that conflict. The Munich terrorist massacre during the 1972 Olympics didn’t cause that event’s cancellation (though there were cries of outrage that it didn’t), nor did the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. The NFL didn’t even postpone its games the Sunday after the Kennedy assassination in 1963.
In the same vein, the HBO documentary “Nine Innings from Ground Zero” documented the key role the continuation of baseball in New York played in healing that city and the nation in the weeks following 9/11.
Despite all this, however, the terrorism in Mumbai this past week could well have a major impact on the sport that is growing the fastest internationally at the dawn of the 21st century – cricket. And that, in itself, could have major foreign policy implications.
We Americans are oblivious to the fact that cricket has a far larger international following than any of our national games – thanks, of course, to its wild popularity in India and neighboring Pakistan. In the last decade or so, the sport has evolved considerably – as the old five-day test match format has been superseded in popularity by one-day cricket and then, 20/20 cricket – which can be played in several hours. In terms of TV ratings, at least, cricket’s World Cup (played every four years) is one of the four leading sporting events on the global calendar.
In the world of cricket, India is ground central. Not only does it provide the most fans through its own vast population, its national team is currently considered the best in the world. Last year, the nation saw the launch of a highly successful professional league, attracting cricketers from all over the world.
The Mumbai attacks will clearly make it far less likely that any foreigners will want to play in India in the foreseeable future. (The English, which had a team touring this week, made plans for the players to leave at once and a tournament involving some of the world’s best club teams, scheduled for early December, has already been postponed.) That will have an immediate impact. India’s crucial role in the internationalization of cricket was a key part of the nation’s larger effort to position itself as a central player in the world economic and political community.
And there’s even more to it than that. There’s always a link between sports and politics – as anyone who can remember the American 1980 Olympic ice hockey victory over the Soviets knows. But perhaps in no other sport are the political stakes higher than in cricket between India and Pakistan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cricket has always reflected the state of affairs between the two nations -- who have fought three wars and countless skirmishes since each was formed and defined largely on religious grounds in 1947 after the British partition.
When the two nations met at the cricket World Cup in 2003, riots broke out in Gurajat, India, a frequent site of religious turmoil between Muslims and Hindus; security forces were put on alert. In 1993, a proposed Pakistani cricket tour of India had to be cancelled after a Hindu nationalist leader threatened to burn the fields on which the contests were scheduled.
When India took the tentative first step of sending a junior team to Pakistan in the winter of 1997-98, a test match series was stopped for a day in the middle by order of the Pakistani government to show solidarity with dissidents in Indian-held Kashmir. On the last day of the match, as its own protest, the Indian team failed to show.
Thus it was considered a great show of progress – both in the cricket world and in terms of international relations – when in 2004, for the first time in almost 15 years, India headed to Pakistan for a month-long series of matches. When the series was concluded successfully, the thaw coincided with an improvement in relations between the two nations.
Now, with the latest attack – and the Indian government’s decision to immediately blame “elements” in Pakistan for the massacre -- all that is at risk. Already a series between India and Pakistan in Pakistan scheduled for January is considered unlikely.
Too much can be made of the interplay between sports and politics. But in the case of India, cricket, and terrorism, it’s all very real.
