Never trust your neighbour too much, especially if its India

Being a journalist, one is often cursed with the habit of farseeing, and at times, possessing too much knowledge of distasteful things to come. But it is our commitment to keep optimism shining and safeguarding national interest that often prevents us from hitting the keyboard.

Unfortunately, PCB has not been on the calling side of the table for some time now. In most situations, it had to accept whatever was thrown its way. Teams flatly refused to step in Pakistan and PCB was forced to host matches abroad, depriving itself from pocketing huge revenues and fans from witnessing cliff hangers.

With all its efforts exhausted, there was little PCB could do when the ‘Big Three’ walked in with the promise to unearth King John’s lost treasure. The idea generated stanch resistance from the then PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf, who refused to kneel down calling it bullying from the Big Three. But with the regime change within PCB, the new bosses were willing to risk their money as well as test their luck.

You cannot blame them, the offer was mammoth. Garnished with six bilateral series against arch rivals India, PCB was proposed to be richer by a whopping Rs 30 billion over the next eight years.

So basically what the Big Three said was, join us and we will fill your coffers with uncountable figures



Tempting indeed, but the offer came with its set of cautions. While the tag team of Shahryar Khan and Najam Sethi assured all that they had hit the bullseye, most senior journalists and former cricketers were just not ready to beat the drum.

We all were skeptical of the promises, but we kept our apprehensions within. Pakistan cricket and fans needed a shot of optimism and we wanted to give this ‘Good News’ its fair chance.

Sports and politics, forced to merge together

This skepticism was built on genuine fears; behind this deal was India, our contrasting neighbour who has time and again strangled cricket ties to uplift its political jigsaws. With the slightest of bullet sounds along the Line of Control (LoC) or an unfortunate terror riot, the first thing to land under the guillotine is cricket.

The Mumbai attacks in 2008 saw the cancellation of a full stretch tour, and just recently the Gurdaspur incident has all but killed any possibility for India’s tour in December this year.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary, Anurag Thakur, blames Pakistan for harbouring its wanted terrorists and rules out any cricketing ties till we hand them over. I have little political sense and would better leave this argument to defense analysts, but I have learned this important lesson over the years, ‘Separating the one thing that bridges the two nations won’t yield any solution’.

India’s temperamental attitude towards Pakistan is no secret to anyone, same goes for BCCI that reserves its decision to play with Pakistan on its government’s dictation. In such a fragile environment, a catastrophe is always around the corner, and as always, it did not take long to hit with force.

Agree to play in India, everything would be fine

Don’t be surprised but yes that is exactly what India wants PCB to do. Send the Green Shirts over to India and we have got ourselves a game. They will not play in Pakistan because we are terrorists, but then, we are not if we play in their home.

This juggernaut is nothing new, let us go back to 2012 to understand India’s rationale in its true contest.

After the 2008 Mumbai attacks the entire Indian nation stood united in maligning Pakistan for the bloody attacks, and with Ajmal Kasab’s hanging on November 21, 2012, the anti-Pakistan sentiments scaled the heights of Hiroshima’s black clouds.

Shockingly, just five weeks into Kasab’s hanging, on December 25, 2012, Pakistan was facing India in front of Bangalore’s sellout crowd. How could the hostile neighbour that did not even want to discuss bilateral ties, suddenly turn congenial and go all out to invite Pakistan to play on its soil?

The magical ointment that suddenly soothed blazing emotions must have been bottled in commercialism. For the real answer one has to consider India’s humongous financial power and the nation’s insatiable appetite for cricket. BCCI smartly squeezed a quick five games series between the windows available during England’s split tour to India.

The amazing Moneyball



Let us take a quick look at the huge amounts that forced India to bend all rules. When India play Pakistan at home, the TV viewership can be anywhere between 130-140 million. Plain translation, “There is BIG money to be made.”

According to Indian industry sources, ESPN STAR, the official broadcaster of the series paid BCCI Rs 322.6 million per match. On the advertising front, the spot rate for the ODIs was Rs 7-7.5 lakh while the T20 was sold at a mind-boggling Rs 9 lakh per 10 second.

Sanjay Kailash, Executive Vice President, ESPN India, was obviously delighted with the resumption of the one-sided series, and how can he not be? Just 5 days of cricket made his organisation richer by Rs 140 billion.

Consider this too; the 10 sec spots for the ongoing India-England series at that time were sold at half the price at around Rs.3.5 lakh for the ODIs and Rs.4.25-4.5 lakh for the Twenty20 matches. While the 2011 WC Pak-India semi-final saw the 10-second spot going for a record Rs.13.5 lakh.

With stakes that high, no wonder, National Integrity could rest in back stage for a while.

PCB’s plan B, if there is any…



One can only hope that the tension along the LoC cools down allowing BCCI to rethink its decision, but by the look of things, December might not be the hatching month for Indo-Pak cricket.

With an expected loss of $ 45 million, Chairman PCB has already mentioned on turning to plan B, question is, what plan can compensate a loss of that proportion?

PCB insiders suggesting a plan to rope in minors like Ireland, Scotland or maybe lure West Indies and even Sri-Lanka, but all these efforts lack clarity at the moment. Besides, when India plays, the big boys of Indian sponsors pump in their money. In case of other teams, PCB will have to circle around local sponsors that lack muscle power to match the Indians.

It is a bitter pill that PCB will have to swallow in any case, but they have to see the bigger picture. There is no game on earth bigger than Pakistan- India cricket, but you cannot (and should not) go begging someone to play with you while they have little interest.

There is no point in playing our home series on Indian soil as it only pushes our cricket backwards.

Deceived and bruised, PCB has learned its lesson the hard way.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. PCB needs visionary thinkers to bail it out, question is, does it have any?

Ashar Zaidi is a Senior Sports Anchor with Geo News, he tweets at @AsharZaidiGeo

The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of the Jang Group and Geo News