It's not just another game

"It''s just another game," said Ganguly. "It''s just another game," said Dravid. "It''s just another game," said Akram. When so many people tell you it''s just a game, you know for sure, it isn''t. And how could it be when for one of the teams a loss would mean certain elimination?
I write this before the match has begun; you will read it after it has ended, so the advantage lies with you.You will know if Shoaib Akhtar put his foot in his mouth once again, for he announced "If I get my rhythm right, I am not going to let the Indian batsmen have an easy time. If I get the ball in the right place, I don''t think the Indian batsmen will get easy runs." That''s two ‘ifs'' too many. To that you could add a third: "If I had a brain in the right place, I could actually get batsmen out instead of just thinking about the fastest ball ever."
Akhtar''s perch (on the rooftops) and his volume (he shouts from his perch) have achieved the impossible: they have actually made an Australian seem like a thinking cricketer: Brett Lee, who could have gone into foolish competition with Akhtar and the speed gun, has begun to concentrate on the more important job of taking wickets.
Come to think of it, this Pak team is a gift to every other team. Saeed Anwar, for example, makes every other cricketer seem well groomed. Waqar makes Donald feel better. Inzaman makes every batsman in every other team look like a better judge of a run. If India wins, we can lay a few sub-continental sporting myths to rest. Such as a killer instinct and aggro in the field always win over gentlemanly behaviour. That big meat-eaters fight better battles than the macchi and aloo brigade. If, on the other hand, Pakistan wins, the Indian team will get a new psychologist and a new dietician.
There was a time when India and Pakistan played each other regularly and the players fraternised with each other before and after the game, their on-field hostilities submerged by shared interests in Hindi movies, music and biryani. That no longer happens because politicians have decreed that cricket isn''t just a game. So it was good to hear our England-match hero Ashish Nehra, giving credit to a Pakistani cricketer. "It was Wasim Akram," Nehra said, "who gave me important tips and that''s why I am a better bowler." In the context of this India-Pakistan skirmish, it''s like a Pakistani general walking across the border to an Indian soldier and telling him how to use his weapons more effectively.
Seems like hara-kiri? No. It just shows that there is a humanity which binds us together. Whatever our game. And whichever our side of the fence.