Dil Dil Pakistan
Time to show some vital signs of health
It is often said that good intros can set up a song. It takes just ten seconds of Crowded House’s Weather With You to know – this is what highways were made for. The chorus, when it arrives, delivers on every promise made by the opening guitar riff. Then, as the road spreads out into four lanes and the world blurs past your window, switch to Van Halen’s Jump. Intro, bridge, chorus - perfection.
Some songs are, of course, less than perfect. Netflix’s new docuseries, India vs Pakistan - The Greatest Rivalry, fumbles a readymade script for a compelling show. It cherrypicks chapters, misses milestones, twists sequences and facts, and is written in the timbre of a drawing room gathering hosted by two overdramatic WhatsApp-group uncles. Which is a shame because the show gets the intro right.
Within five minutes of the first episode, two master storytellers, Sharda Ugra and Osman Samiuddin, deliver an apt mood-setter for cricket in the subcontinent, especially India and Pakistan. Sharda draws us into this world where cricket holds a unique power, followed unlike anywhere else. Osman applies the coup de grâce, the bow, with a word I wish I had used before: majboori, translating to compulsion.
In these two countries, and Sri Lanka, cricket fandom is delivered as an inheritance. You are born into it. Even those that wander at a younger age eventually wash up on the shore because you can go only so far in these lands without coming across a room full of hypnotised humanoids, or having to dodge a fluorescent green projectile while walking through a narrow bylane.
And this pull is inescapable, magnetic. You feel it in the crowds that snake for kilometres, in the thunder of drums and brass bands, in the unlikely origin stories and unlikelier growth spurts. It lives in those sizzling, thrilling yorkers that shatter pride, stumps, and toes; in those audacious flicks and hoicks where batters lift their legs to the sky – part dance, part acrobatics. One team falls to match-fixing, another’s parent body leaks reports of their star bowler contracting genital warts1, while somewhere else a team of underdogs lifts a World Cup trophy as the skies above their land are still covered in black smoke from a civil war. Nowhere else is cricket such a cultural pillar.
Cricket might find its aesthetic beauty in England, its ceiling for excellence in Australia, but here in the subcontinent, it finds its pulse, its heartbeat, its raw, unfiltered life.
That realisation has come through two streams in the last thirty years. The 1996 Men’s ODI World Cup opened the windows to the subcontinent’s colours and financial muscle, and cricket has never looked back. ITC paid $12 million for the title sponsorship and christened the tournament after its flagship cigarette brand; the TV rights went for $14 million - an unprecedented amount of money for a non-Olympic sporting event. The crowd was loud, boisterous, musical. A hundred thousand people crammed into Eden Gardens in Calcutta for the opening ceremony. And that was it, the tipping point, the moment when England and Australia lost their hundred-year hold as spiritual oracles of the sport.2
That redrawn map has had a few bold amendments. The subcontinent now defaults to India. Post ‘96, India became too vast to look away from, even through its struggles with ethnic violence, burning stadiums, and riot police. A market of this size commands attention, demands it. The sport continues to be in a trance from what India brings to the table. In the nascent World Wide Web era, spearheading the marketability was this three-word phenomena that drew more eyeballs than anything else in the sport: Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Eventually, India became the nucleus; it had to.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka emerged as cricket’s perfect middle-weight story. A small island nation that played with oversized spirit. Their players seem to be made of special wires, blending rare bravery and enterprise with technical skill. Their stadiums didn’t need coked-up DJs. The papare brass band kept the rhythm of the game alive, while spectators chugged glasses of local beer - available at a ten-step distance from every seat.3
Then there was Pakistan. A team of extremes – either playing cricket that touched the divine or struggling with basic mechanics. No one was as thrilling; no one made you pull at your hair more. You couldn’t look away. A nation that seemed perpetually entangled in turbulent air, its cricket team impossible to separate from its political turmoil. Many times, those sitting at the top of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) were also attending meetings at the national parliament building.
The Netflix show dips into this tilt of the balance beam. Its narrative begins just as Pakistan cricket was about to enter a descent, thus conveniently flying over the era when Pakistan dominated world cricket, when they were World Champions, when the world’s most watchable cricketer captained their side, when tournaments began with them as favourites.
Now, Pakistan exists in cricket’s peripheral vision, appearing fully formed only when playing India in tournaments. Beyond the Kartarpur Corridor Clasico, the country and its cricket fade into the background, as if viewed through frosted glass. When the house next door grows into a fortress, casting long shadows over your garden, your voice probably becomes just another whisper in the wind.
That’s what makes next week important. Three days from now, when Pakistan kick off the ICC Champions Trophy against New Zealand at the National Stadium in Karachi, it will be the first game of a major men’s cricket tournament in the country since that World Cup of 1996. Twenty-nine years, during which subcontinental cricket has shattered every anglo glass ceiling ever constructed. In this era of golden sunlight, India has hosted 266 games of men’s tournament cricket, Sri Lanka 110, Bangladesh 102.
In a way, it is poetic that the tournament begins with New Zealand. The first paragraph of the chapter about Pakistan cricket in the 21st century starts with New Zealand.
In the smoke of 9/11, New Zealand were the first to pull out of a tour to Pakistan, citing security fears. Sri Lanka, lined up as replacements, followed suit. By early 2002, Pakistan found themselves hosting West Indies at neutral venues, earning a fraction of what a home series would bring. Then came a moment of cruel irony – New Zealand, finally convinced to return in 2002, were hours away from their second Test in Karachi when a bomb ripped through the area outside their hotel, taking fourteen human lives, that series, and any hopes Pakistan had of a serious team touring them anytime soon.
In that gap between New Zealand’s departure and India’s arrival in spring 2004 – flanked by a motorcade of armoured vehicles and commando guards – Pakistan’s only visitors were newcomers Bangladesh.
India has its own history with treating a tour to Pakistan with suspicion. For fifteen years after 19894, they stayed away, pointing to Kashmir, Kargil, and every conflict in between. Even as the 2004 tour approached, Pakistan’s fragility caused a lot of sleepless nights. Two bombs exploded in Rawalpindi within eleven days, both meant for General Pervez Musharraf. He survived, but sixteen others didn’t. The Indian team, watching these events unfold from Australia, put their concerns in writing – every player signing a letter expressing their doubts about making the journey.
“As the Indians vacillated and debated, and the home ministry planted story after story to gauge public sentiment, Pakistan’s government officials, cricket officials, former cricket players, current cricket players, newspaper men and public, all urged them to purge their minds of doubt and just come. Nobody was left uninterviewed, not even the spokesperson of a terrorist group, who claimed he was unaware that there was a tour on the cards at all—but quickly added that the Indian cricketers would be ‘our guests and it is our responsibility to give them full honour and respect’.” - Rahul Bhattacharya, Pundits From Pakistan
But the 2004 series went through, and my god, was it transformative.
For starters, the cricket was absolutely staggering. Pakistan may have been in a slight decline with respect to their lofty standards in the 90s, but they still had Inzamam, Shoaib, Saqlain, Abdul Razzaq, Moin Khan, Shahid Afridi - most, if not all, in flying form. India turned up with Sachin, Sourav, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Kumble, Yuvraj. It was a contest that lived up to the hype, many times over.5
But beyond the boundary ropes, something deeper changed. Every Indian who crossed the border – player, journalist, tourist – returned with stories of warmth unlike they had ever experienced before. Pakistan opened its homes and hearts, treating visitors like long-lost family, feeding them until they could eat no more, then insisting on taking back gifts and dessert.
The tour became a catalyst. Cricket found its rhythm again in Pakistan. India returned within two years, and Pakistan made the journey across the border just as often. The wheel seemed to be turning.
Those wheels, sport, and our collective breath stopped one November evening. Ten Pakistani terrorists arrived by sea and brought blood and death to Mumbai. After the tears had dried, India made a vow – no more cricket. Seventeen years later, they haven’t budged by an inch.6
The final blow landed a few months after 26/11, outside Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium. A group of gunmen opened fire on the Sri Lankan team bus, and with that incident died Pakistan’s last chance to convince the world it could keep cricket safe. The ICC’s doors closed, indefinitely.
“At the end of 2007 Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, the army headquarters. In the middle of 2011 Osama Bin Laden was located and killed in a safehouse not far from there. In the interval, according to the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, over 30,000 Pakistani lives were lost to terrorism, the war on terror and violent conflict.” - Rahul Bhattacharya
The financial cost of the exile continues to hurt the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Osman Samiuddin’s book reveals the raw numbers: the PCB bled $1 million every time they “hosted” a Test or ODI series in the UAE. The ripples spread across the country, revealing how deeply cricket was entrenched in their economy. Osman speaks of a car rental company forced to sell half its fleet after losing the cricket board contract. There were no more matches to attend, no players to drive.
And then there was the human cost. For ten years, a nation that lives through its cricket was deprived of watching their heroes in the flesh. Their own team was playing home games thousands of kilometres away. In the meantime, they won a T20 World Cup, became the best Test team in the world, won the last edition of the Champions Trophy, but none of it could be celebrated with the roar of a local stadium.
That Champions Trophy win in 2017 - in London, against a glittering India team - was pure, unadulterated Pakistan. They were lucky to make it to the finals, came up against a team that looked unbeatable, started cautiously, and then blazed their opponents out of the game.
Along with the white jackets and the slick golden trophy, that afternoon likely opened the door for this edition’s hosting rights. Seven teams confirmed their tickets on time, but one crucial signature remained missing. Just when schedules should have been finalised, the BCCI’s message arrived at the PCB and ICC offices: they would not be flying to Pakistan, period.
The Pakistan Cricket Board hit a brick wall in negotiations. It didn’t matter that their team had traveled to India for the 2023 ODI World Cup, playing through a campaign where their supporters couldn’t enter the country and stadium DJs blared religiously-charged music. The power balance meant India could simply smirk at their face when asked to return the favour. Cut to: India’s matches will now be played in the UAE, including potential semi-finals and finals. So much for cricket coming back.
The BCCI’s official reason was, obviously, “security concerns”. Thin as that veil may be, Pakistan will have to see through this tournament under an air of anxiety. Somewhere within the ICC offices, hawk-eyed suits will scan the Champions Trophy for red flags - noting every security lapse, every flickering floodlight, every technology hiccup - building their case for why Pakistan shouldn’t host major tournaments. In all honesty, the PCB doesn’t always produce a compelling case for the opposite.
A cricket board’s primary duty is to advance their nation’s cricketing interests. The BCCI takes this mandate to extremes, but the principle holds. The PCB, meanwhile, seems determined to refine their circus act at every opportunity, consistently failing both team and fans.
“After all, 9/11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan affected no country as much as Pakistan; we should be talking of the tolls of over a decade, not just the last five years. The International Cricket Council (ICC) set up a task force to help, but as Pakistan lost itself in a maze of self-created crises—most notably the spot-fixing scandal in 2010—the remit of the task force expanded, bewildered by the realization that curing Pakistan cricket is an overwhelming task.” - Osman Samiuddin, The Unquiet Ones
Take the Gaddafi Stadium renovations in Lahore. The final round of seats were getting placed just last week, their coat of paint probably still wet as you read this. Even then, the stands don’t have a roof, so fans who make the trip will have to carry a bottle each of sunscreen and tender coconut water. Secondly, they haven’t had the time to test for tensile strength. If something fails, it will be treated less as misfortune and more as inevitability.
The Champions Trophy started as a cool addition to the cricket calendar - knockout rounds, higher jeopardy - but today, in a bloated schedule with Test cricket and T20 taking up all the important pockets, its function and relevance are debatable. An eight-year hiatus for a major tournament should tell you everything.
Yet, this one’s different, significant, poignant even. As cricket chases new horizons and fresh markets, this is a chance to repair a burnt bridge, to reconnect with an old friend who’s been waiting too long at the door.
In this period, India and Pakistan did not play bilateral cricket for a decade.
A generation of Indian all-timers - Virat, Rohit, Ashwin, Bumrah - will retire without ever knowing the smell of a Pakistan Test match.
I am so lucky to know Pakistanis in my travels and stay outside India. Of course, my sample size is Just mine. Some of the best people with the ability to laugh at themselves and God their humor! i was also one of those who would make list of a combined cricket team. Sigh.
It feels awful to see the neighbor like this but there are way too many reasons for them to stay as it is than to get a change. Still, I wish them well. Always. Fabulous post, per usual, hero.
Absolutely loved this, Sarthak!! You are truly a master story teller making an article about the most gentlemenly of games sound like a nail biting suspense novel!!