Cricket Terrorism Starved Pakistani Nation
Now a days, even cricket has deserted Pakistan and a cricket fan can no longer watch his team play at home. Tours to Pakistan were already a trickle, with teams like Australia refusing to tour. Conditions worsened since the 2009 terrorist attacks on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore. Since then, no foreign team has competed in Pakistan. Albeit Pakistan has tried to make the best out of the situation by offering to host their “home matches” on neutral countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or England.
Terrorism-stricken, cricket obsessed Pakistan has lost millions of dollars in revenues from the cricket industry, as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) makes money through gate receipts and television rights for games held in the country. Overall, Pakistan has lost more than $125 million in revenues as foreign teams decided not to tour Pakistan because of security concerns. Former PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt revealed that the abandonment of India’s 2009 tour to Pakistan brought a loss of more than $47 million.
The sub-continent is going to host the World Cup in 2011 after a gap of 15 years. No place on earth can allege to have the 'safe' tag any longer. All the four cricket-playing nations of the sub-continent are facing terror intimidations. India has been fighting a battle against terrorism since its day of independence. What was once confined to the disputed territory of Jammu & Kashmir and the North East, has now spread to other parts of the country. Bangladesh has been a hotbed of fundamentalism for the past few decades or so. Sri Lanka has just come out of a civil war against the Tamil Tigers after three decades. Nevertheless, Pakistan suffered the most from the war on terror. Pakistan was dropped as a venue last year due to security issues.
Cricket terrorism has also affected the geopolitics of the region as well. The Indo-Pak peace process had already been stopped after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. However, the tension appears to have entered into the world of cricket as well. The men in green were snubbed from the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2010 as no Pakistani player was bought during the auction for the third edition of the IPL.
Cricket has often been a metaphor for peace between India and Pakistan. The sport has been held hostage for that very reason too. Cricket, in the past, has been a true ambassador between the two countries. The term “Cricket Diplomacy” was coined in 1987, with former Pakistan President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq visited India for a cricket match. He met India’s then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The same strategy was adopted in 2005 by former President General (r) Pervez Musharaf which was supposed to be a significant step forward in warming the Indo-Pak relations. Nevertheless, it seems as if cricket can no longer be used as a diplomatic tool now.
Pakistan continues to bear cricket terrorism’s atrocious effects, economically, sociologically and politically. The economic cost of cricket terrorism has grown further than the original loss. Jobs may have also been lost in the lucrative cricket industry.
The future of cricket in Pakistan has fallen into the hands of terrorists. The questions that arise over here are; when will things improve? What does future hold for Pakistani cricket? When will Pakistan get to host an international cricket match again? What would be Pakistan’s identity as a national unifier? Will the country itself be pushed into further isolation?
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