Jonathan Liew (Guardian): "ECB should break the global silence on Pakistan's sad and strange IPL exile"

[saged]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2020/oct/26/ecb-global-silence-pakistan-ipl-exile?__twitter_impression=true

 

Last week, the England and Wales Cricket Board announced it is in the process of organising the first official England tour of Pakistan in 15 years. This is, self‑evidently, the right thing to do. Since England’s last visit in 2005-06, Pakistan have toured this country eight times for various tournaments and series. From the ECB’s perspective, their decision to brave the pandemic and send a team this summer may well have proven the difference between financial ruin and mere recession.

 

And so naturally the decision to consider the possibility of maybe, potentially, exploring the idea of touring Pakistan for a very short Twenty20 series in early 2021 – subject to all the usual security and logistical caveats – has been spun in many quarters as an act of supreme munificence. Yet if England are genuinely keen on extending the hand of solidarity to Pakistani cricket, then there is something else it could do. It could politely but pointedly use its voice at next month’s International Cricket Council board meeting to ask why Pakistani players continue to be excluded from the world’s biggest cricket tournament.

Yes, the Indian Premier League, currently unfolding behind closed doors in the United Arab Emirates: a competition that likes to think of itself as the sport’s ultimate meritocracy, its global melting pot, a place blind to heritage or tradition. The cricketing embodiment of Martin Luther King’s vision, in which your four little children will be judged not on the colour of their passport but on their ability to execute their skills in an elite performance environment.

 

Of the 20 countries represented in the IPL in the past decade – including Nepal, the Netherlands and the US – Pakistan remains frozen out, ghosted since the inaugural season in 2008. (Azhar Mahmood, the sole exception, was technically a British citizen.) We all know why. Or at least we think we do. It’s something to do with security. Or politics. It just hasn’t really been explained, or even properly talked about, in about a decade.

 

Which, when you think about it, is pretty weird. Very few of the practical justifications for excluding Pakistani players hold even the slightest water. This is a competition that has managed to relocate its entire apparatus halfway around the world at a moment’s notice, creating a whole chain of rigid, biosecure bubbles across the Gulf. They could probably find a way of keeping Shaheen Afridi safe if they really wanted to.

 

In reality, this is a decision driven largely by ideology, nationalism and geopolitics: the dressing room as proxy battlefield, the auction as theatre of war. So here we are: an IPL in the adopted home of Pakistani cricket, without any Pakistanis in it. And not by rule or decree, but simply by convention: it has always been and thus will it always be.

There are two points to make about all this. The first is that this is how power operates in its purest and most devastating form: unspoken and unexamined, implicit and invisible. You don’t ask. You just know. This, more than any amount of ICC politicking or revenue-grabbing, is the best way of understanding India’s influence over world cricket.

The second is that even if you set the principle of the thing to one side, this is so clearly a self-defeating arrangement. Imagine how much richer a spectacle the IPL would have been with the participation of Umar Gul or Shahid Afridi or Mohammad Amir, how much their expertise could have enriched others.

This is a sadness that works in two directions: the experience not accumulated, the wealth not earned, the lives not transformed. Indeed, one of the more remarkable footnotes of T20 history is the way so many Pakistanis have managed to bestride the format without the benefit of its pre-eminent tournament: the equivalent of an elite footballer unable to test themselves in the Champions League. Pakistani bowlers make up five of the 13 highest wicket-takers in T20 history. The Pakistan Super League has gradually managed to build itself into one of the world’s leading competitions. All this while effectively being placed under sanctions.

 

You might ask what all this has to do with England. After all, there are many valid criticisms of the ECB chief executive, Tom Harrison, but a failure to broker a peaceful solution in Jammu and Kashmir is not one of them. At the very least, though, this is the sort of issue that deserves to be raised, not buried; discussed, not dissolved; that should be part of any conversation on the future of the sport and how its leading nations deal with each other.

 

Because if cricket’s past decade was defined by the question of wealth and how to share it, its next decade will surely be about borders and how to define them. In a world of walls and bubbles, the very concept of international cricket is being imperilled before our eyes. This is, and perhaps has always 

[prudent_kreeda]

Who is so sad in India about this exile ?

[Gollum]

Awwww so sweet. 

Eng-Pak friendship zindabad

Edited November 1, 2020 by Gollum

[Serpico]

2 hours ago, saged said:

a competition that likes to think of itself as the sport’s ultimate meritocracy, its global melting pot, a place blind to heritage or tradition. The cricketing embodiment of Martin Luther King’s vision, in which your four little children will be judged not on the colour of their passport but on their ability to execute their skills in an elite performance environment

 when did IPL claim to be any of these things? did I miss something?

 

Each team is restricted to have only 4 non-indian players so yeah, they literally are judged based on their passport. Jonathan liew is living in 2040 when we are still going through 2020

Edited November 1, 2020 by Serpico

[Laaloo]

19 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Awwww so sweet. 

Eng-Pak friendship zindabad

It’s nauseating. I guess brits have no issues with Muslim sex grooming gangs.

[chewy]

This article would make more sense if it was directed to ECB, requesting England to tour Pakistan...But won't happen because of terrorism and the religious fanatics murdering people domestically and overseas...and there lies the crux of the problem

 

Pakistan rightnow is pretty much a sh!tshow.

 

 

[saged]

2 hours ago, chewy said:

This article would make more sense if it was directed to ECB, requesting England to tour Pakistan...But won't happen because of terrorism and the religious fanatics murdering people domestically and overseas...and there lies the crux of the problem

 

Pakistan rightnow is pretty much a sh!tshow.

 

 

Aren't England going to play in Pakistan next year?

[Khota]

This writer should stick to cricket. He has no idea what is going on but has time to give an opinion. Pathetic journalism. Moron.

[nevada]

The global silence on allowing this terror sponsor nation to continue playing international cricket should be broken too. 

[chewy]

4 hours ago, saged said:

Aren't England going to play in Pakistan next year?

It is Pakistan who have sent an invitation but no confirmation from ECB.

 

Maybe this journalist can convince ECB it is the duty of England to send their players to Pakistan on 1 month tour to return favour Pakistan did by playing in England during COVID.

And any concerns of security from England players is hogwash and players have moral duty to support their Pakistani counterparts.

 

 

[express bowling]

The quality of journalism is being pulled down by a handful of journalists  ... and here is an example.

[mishra]

Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi and Mohammed Aamir will make IPL viewing rich. Where do Guardian find such ill informed reporters.

Edited November 2, 2020 by mishra

[Rightarmfast]

I'd love a few articles from the same author on how Britain needs to pay reparation to Pakistan owing to how it treated the country during colonial raj. That will be interesting. 

What Indian cricket does is no subject to discuss for a foreigner. As long as there is no breach of law with the council of cricket, India has a choice to do things at will. I dont understand what he is going on about.

It is rich to hear something about Amir from these brit journalists. Arent they the same one who were after him after the betting scandal?

[bowl_out]

Why are they so desperate to get into a league where they are not wanted?  

 

[Laaloo]

9 minutes ago, bowl_out said:

Why are they so desperate to get into a league where they are not wanted?  

 

They are eternal beggars 

[rollingstoned]

1 hour ago, mishra said:

Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi and Mohammed Aamir will Mohhammed Aamir IPL rich. Where do Guardian find such ill informed reporters.

This explains a lot. Labour mouthpiece and.as Pakipasand as the bbc nowadays. Guy would do well to see the history of why pakistani players got.banned in the first place, they didn't do themselves any favors at the time and were left with egg on their faces. 

Edited November 2, 2020 by rollingstoned

[Cricketics]

Seems like ECB is hiring bunch of BBC documentary creator sand its goons who like to make up shyt. They should also hire Barkha Dutt in this management. 

[maniac]

Pakistanis are a weird bunch. They call PSL the real deal and good quality cricket but are desperate to see their players in IPL. They have some weird complex.

 

Back in the day when pretty much every Indian fan used to literally worship Sachin,

they hated him, picked holes in his stats, called Inzi the real match winner etc etc. They cheered Dravid who even though a legend in his own right would usually get more criticism from Indian fans relatively speaking. They called Kapil a trundler but Sunny G was accepted due to IK certifying him and also Sunny G got more criticism than Kapil.

 

Later on Dhoni came on to the scene,our Pakistani friends got confused how to handle this, this is a guy they would make him an army chief instead of a paratrooper if he was Pakistani in a heartbeat but now Indian fans turned on him eventually so they were stunned and acknowledged him as a legend. Same thing with Kohli who obviously panders to them and that makes him even more lovable. They rate Rohit than some fans on ICF . They pick holes in players like Bumrah who are universally liked by Indian fans.

 

These guys have been getting mind f’ed since 1100 AD

[putrevus]

Who the hell is this moron to tell BCCI, what it should do in regards to IPL. First when England was stinking in shorter format every tom dick and harry from England were complaining on how IPL was ruining world cricket.

 

Now that their players are doing well in IPL and are in demand, they have come up with this nonsense.These self righteous morons need to tell ECB to tour Pakistan first. Nobody stopped them from doing it.

[The Realist]

I feel like I've been exiled from the IPL too, where are my riches?

 

Who gives a F what some random Chinese guy writing for a jihadist publication thinks anyway