Money, box-office value of Indo-Pak cricket are the least concerns now: Ayaz Memon

In the aftermath of the brutal Pahalgam attack, India has retaliated by striking nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and PoK. India head coach Gautam Gambhir, at an event in Delhi last nigh, said that India should not play Pakistan at all, even in ICC tournaments or in neutral venues. Now, he made this comment before the attack, but it went viral with a lot of people online praising him for his words. Given the current hostilities between the two nations and the fact that cricket has always been used as a diplomatic tool, do you think we are at a point of no return and possibly this could be the end of India-Pakistan cricket as we know it?

 

First, it's preposterous to think that we can have cricket relations right now. I mean, the environment, we know what it is like after the blood-curdling attack at Pahalgam.

 

So I think that right now, cricket diplomacy in the aftermath of not just this attack, but also what transpired before—we had the Champions Trophy, which is an ICC event, where India and Pakistan both played against each other, and then we had the attack in Pahalgam—[is at a point where] the sensibilities, at least in India certainly, will not even permit looking at an Indo-Pak engagement, even if it's an ICC event. Now, the next big ICC event I can think of is the T20 World Cup, which is about a year away.

 

So, I don't know what cricket diplomacy can forge, but right now, it looks extremely difficult unless things settle down, not just amicably, but settle down enough for India to think about playing against Pakistan even in an ICC event.

 

We know that the India-Pakistan game is the moneymaker in all of these ICC tournaments; that's the one that everyone wants, the broadcaster, the host country, the other boards. So, in realistic terms, how do you go about it?

 

It’s a very complicated issue for the ICC certainly. I think money or the box-office value of Indo-Pak cricket is the least concern now, at least from the Indian point of view. It’s like a maze right now for [the ICC]. Cricket diplomacy has been used in the past, but right now, it seems that the sentiment is weighed heavily against any Indo-Pak cricket engagement, whether it is bilateral—of course, it's not been happening—but even if it's an ICC event. At this point in time, it seems to me that it is even preposterous as a suggestion.

 

 

 

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