Srinivas
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Lessons in cricket diplomacy from Afghanistan
It is Pakistan's worst nightmare. After more than 20 years of providing accommodation, facilities and funding, what do the Afghans do? They turn their backs on their old pals and look instead to the rival regional power India.
This time, though, we are not talking about the young students who left Pakistan's madrassahs and returned to Afghanistan as Taliban commanders. Nor the moderate politicians who remember which country hosted them when times were tough. This time it is cricket.
As my colleague in New Delhi Dean Nelson writes:
Afghanistan has asked India to help develop cricket in the war-torn country into a national sport as the nation's governing cricket body struggles to meet demand from players who want to take the sport to the next level.
Afghanistan's bright young things have until now looked to Pakistan for help. Most of the team was born in refugee camps on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line. It was here that they learned the game. Some will even remember Imran Khan's glorious win the 1992 World Cup.
This profile of Mohammad Shahzad spells out the deep connections:
I grew up watching the likes of Imran Khan and Javed Miandad on land that wasn't mine. I wished I could be a star for my country, but how could I that was a million-dollar question for me. The scope of my life was limited, and the journey of my life with cricket was in an unknown direction.
Times have changed. International cricket will not return to Pakistan for a long time. Plans for a T20 league to rival India's IPL have been shelved amid chaos. It is perhaps only natural now that Afghanistan's cricketers look to a country which regularly hosts the world's top players, which can command a TV audience in hundreds of millions and where advertisers have wads of cash to offer.
The significance will not be lost on Pakistan, a country which views Afghanistan as its own backyard, a crucial piece of territory offering "strategic depth" in its 65-year rivalry with India. Every new Indian consulate, road or investment in Afghanistan merits newspaper headlines over here. Islamabad dreads an Indian toehold on its western flank. That is why it continues to allow the Afghan Taliban to operate from its territory it gives Pakistan a proxy at any peace talks and a buffer to Indian influence.
The decision by Afghanistan cricketing officials may be insignificant compared with the geo-political stakes in play as Nato-led forces leave the country next year, but the lessons are clear. Pakistan risks losing out to a bigger, richer neighbour unless it can sort out its own strategy whether it be how to reform its own cricketing institutions or how to develop a grown-up attitude to Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Not for the first time during my three years in Pakistan, I'm struck by the way cricket serves as a metaphor for the country's travails. If you want to understand this crazy, mixed-up, frustrating, exhilarating, ugly, corrupt, beautiful, religiously-confused, honest, angry country, it is all there in the national XI.
Lessons in cricket diplomacy from Afghanistan – Telegraph Blogs
It is Pakistan's worst nightmare. After more than 20 years of providing accommodation, facilities and funding, what do the Afghans do? They turn their backs on their old pals and look instead to the rival regional power India.
This time, though, we are not talking about the young students who left Pakistan's madrassahs and returned to Afghanistan as Taliban commanders. Nor the moderate politicians who remember which country hosted them when times were tough. This time it is cricket.
As my colleague in New Delhi Dean Nelson writes:
Afghanistan has asked India to help develop cricket in the war-torn country into a national sport as the nation's governing cricket body struggles to meet demand from players who want to take the sport to the next level.
Afghanistan's bright young things have until now looked to Pakistan for help. Most of the team was born in refugee camps on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line. It was here that they learned the game. Some will even remember Imran Khan's glorious win the 1992 World Cup.
This profile of Mohammad Shahzad spells out the deep connections:
I grew up watching the likes of Imran Khan and Javed Miandad on land that wasn't mine. I wished I could be a star for my country, but how could I that was a million-dollar question for me. The scope of my life was limited, and the journey of my life with cricket was in an unknown direction.
Times have changed. International cricket will not return to Pakistan for a long time. Plans for a T20 league to rival India's IPL have been shelved amid chaos. It is perhaps only natural now that Afghanistan's cricketers look to a country which regularly hosts the world's top players, which can command a TV audience in hundreds of millions and where advertisers have wads of cash to offer.
The significance will not be lost on Pakistan, a country which views Afghanistan as its own backyard, a crucial piece of territory offering "strategic depth" in its 65-year rivalry with India. Every new Indian consulate, road or investment in Afghanistan merits newspaper headlines over here. Islamabad dreads an Indian toehold on its western flank. That is why it continues to allow the Afghan Taliban to operate from its territory it gives Pakistan a proxy at any peace talks and a buffer to Indian influence.
The decision by Afghanistan cricketing officials may be insignificant compared with the geo-political stakes in play as Nato-led forces leave the country next year, but the lessons are clear. Pakistan risks losing out to a bigger, richer neighbour unless it can sort out its own strategy whether it be how to reform its own cricketing institutions or how to develop a grown-up attitude to Afghanistan and the Taliban.
Not for the first time during my three years in Pakistan, I'm struck by the way cricket serves as a metaphor for the country's travails. If you want to understand this crazy, mixed-up, frustrating, exhilarating, ugly, corrupt, beautiful, religiously-confused, honest, angry country, it is all there in the national XI.
Lessons in cricket diplomacy from Afghanistan – Telegraph Blogs
