Cricket in No Man's Land
By APARISIM GHOSH

Aaah, this is cricket at its soap-operatic best: two great teams act out the latest installment in a drama that spans generations. A cast of 22 men in white, guided by the ghosts of their forebears, perform with high skill and raw emotion. Watching the new series unfold, millions of spectators travel through the ages, their minds turned time machines, recalling the excitement and the anguish of previous episodes.

Australia vs. England? Could be, but here we're talking about cricket's other great rivalry: India vs. Pakistan. In 51 years, the subcontinent's sworn enemies have fought scores of battles on the cricket pitch, often mimicking the intensity of their three wars off it. More than a billion fans in the two cricket-mad countries relish these encounters as much as--perhaps even more than--Australians and Englishmen. But for the past nine years, they have been denied their favorite spectacle, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with sport.

The last time an Indian team toured Pakistan was in 1989, shortly before Islamic separatists stepped up their rebellion in disputed Kashmir. Since then, the Pakistanis have twice canceled cricket tours of India, citing security concerns. Their fears stem mainly from the vitriolic statements of Bal Thackeray, Bombay's political boss, a Hitler-loving Hindu extremist who has declared India off-limits to Pakistani cricketers. He has warned that his supporters will "break the legs" of Pakistani players if they set foot on Indian soil. Rising to Thackeray's bait, some of his counterparts on the lunatic fringe of Pakistani politics have issued similar threats against Indian players.

As a result, Indo-Pakistani cricketing encounters have been restricted to the shorter, limited-overs version of the game--and have mainly been held on neutral turf, like Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, and Toronto. These distant encounters produce revenue--sponsors are attracted by the potential TV viewing audience of one billion--but little passion. Still, fans would rather see their teams play in some faraway place than not at all. But consider the irony: an Arab or a Canadian has a better chance of seeing the subcontinent's greatest sporting event--live--than does any denizen of the subcontinent. It's as if the Ashes were to be played for in Belgium, or, for that matter, Sharjah.

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