Introduction
Cricket is a sport played and watched by billions of people all over the world. Originating in England, it was spread around the world to Britain’s myriad colonies over the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and currently over a hundred nations are a part of the International Cricket Council, which runs and operates the game internationally. Unlike most popular sports, such as football, soccer, basketball or hockey, the game is largely competed at the international level, with club or franchise tournaments between domestic teams featuring much less prominently than international games. Given the tumultuous path to independence that much of the Commonwealth endured, as well as further political tensions between former British colonies post independence, it’s only natural that these fixtures are steeped with nationalistic emotion and historical meaning that club or domestic fixtures will not have. Consequently, cricket matches between former colonies that engaged in armed conflict, such as India and Pakistan, are usually met with hooliganism in the crowd, extremism on social media and other public platforms and are often exploited for political gain by certain authorities. On the other hand, the games have often led to an improvement in diplomatic relationships between countries. By examining the history of cricket’s international fixtures and these resulting social and political impacts, as well as scholarly work on the effects of sport on diplomacy, the advantages and disadvantages of continuing to play a high volume of international cricket as compared to club or domestic cricket has been evaluated. The essay does this by analysing the matter from a political lens, rather than an economic one, and seeks to understand whether cricket’s emphasis on country versus country contests helps the political situation in the Commonwealth, or harms it.
Advantages of Frequent International Cricket Series
There is no doubt that there have been several instances where sport has fostered diplomacy between politically divided countries. During the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, sport played no small part in maintaining healthy diplomatic relations between the two countries (Trunkos & Heere, 2016). The United States and China also improved relations through an active ping-pong rivalry. According to the book, “Sports Diplomacy - A Review”, sporting events that are held with mutual respect, an adherence to the rules and good spirit allow both the public and officials to rise above political conflicts to admire the spectacle, which in itself goes a long way to improve diplomatic relations. This effect is further amplified if these events are highly covered in the general media, without the pall of propaganda. Often, political leaders from opposing countries will attend events, and will be seen talking and mingling with leaders from ‘enemy’ countries, which is an important signifier to the public that the relationship between political enemies can be resolved, and that hostility can be overcome.
India’s 2004 Tour of Pakistan: A Case Study
As alluded to by Heere and Trunkos, India and Pakistan relations in cricket are a case study in this phenomenon. Since partitioning in 1947 into the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, relations between the countries has been frosty at best. After war broke out on the Indian border in 1999, bilateral cricket relations were suspended, further severing ties between the nations. While relations improved enough to face off in the 2003 Cricket World Cup, tensions on and off the field meant that cricket was used to fuel nationalism and extremism, where crowds of people went as far as to stop Muslim Indians from celebrating India’s win, leading to several injuries and even one death (Bandyopadhyay, 2008). However, in 2004, the cricket boards of the two countries decided to engage in a bilateral series of games held in Pakistan. The series was promoted as a “friendship series”, according to then Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Shahrayar Khan (Khan, 2013). This meant that through advertising, a public groundswell of goodwill was created. One saw fans with banners calling for peace, with cheeks painted one side with the Indian flag and the other with Pakistan’s, and generally welcoming the Indian team graciously rather than treating them like the enemy. All of this was done to the backdrop of a cold war of sorts between the two countries’ governments (Bandyopadhyay, 2008). While India’s ruling party at the time, the Bharatiya Janata Party, was against the tour going ahead in the first place, they soon changed their mind after witnessing the public reaction to the series, with Indian Prime Minister urging the Indian team to not only win games in Pakistan, but also the hearts of the Pakistani people (Guha, 2016). The tour not only allowed Indian and Pakistani political leaders to interact and foster healthy relationships– Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi attended the fixtures in Pakistan in an effort to increase diplomatic ties, but also allowed the same for Indian and Pakistani citizens (Sardesai, 2018). The cultural exchanges between the two countries helped reduce animosity and celebrated the countries’ mutual love of cricket. In subsequent series, Indians and Pakistanis have been granted special visas to attend games in the opposing countries, furthering the idea of cultural exchange. In hindsight, the tour of 2004 is seen as a model for how bilateral relations can be bettered through cricket.
The International Sports Laws
The ‘feel good’ of international sporting competition seen in the case study above is attributed to the ‘international sports laws’, a concept discussed in The Role of Sports in International Relations as being the idea that when countries compete on the sports field in a fair, competitive and good-spirited manner, according to the so-called unspoken ‘international sports laws’, there is a mutual admiration and respect of the opposition, which allows viewers to extend that respect to the opposition public as well. In a cricketing context, Indian and Pakistani players are often on their best behaviour during games between the two countries, going as far as to be friendly with each other during the competition. This adherence to the ‘international sports law’ allows them to show to the public, as ambassadors of their respective countries, that civility and respect can be earned without compromising national pride. Furthermore, as a result of the political tensions, viewership for such games is typically high, and teaching values of sportsmanship to viewers is a way to educate the public on diplomacy and a shift of mindset towards peace.
Disadvantages of International Cricket
Despite the aforementioned positives, international sport is often the cause of political flare-ups. Not only is sport susceptible to being exploited for jingoism and nationalism, but also it is highly associated with public sentiment which leads to potentially harmful outcry. Hooliganism is commonplace with international sport, and cricket is no exception. Research shows that hooliganism links with sport in a similar way that riots link with political activism (Yoked, 2018). Large groups of people all sharing a similar mindset in a highly emotional cauldron targeting their anger at another group of people rarely ends well, but when there exists a medley of sporting and political partisanship, the issue is only compounded. The author of the study goes a step further to compare the mentality of soccer hooligans in England to terrorist groups, calling the phenomenon ‘identity fusion’, where one’s identity is so wrapped up with the identity of the group that one acts irrationally as a member of said group. This happens more often in international sport than club sport for the simple fact that one’s nationality and national pride is likely already wrapped up in one’s viewing of an event, making one’s nationalistic pride blend with the support of the team itself. With the advent of social media, hooliganism is no longer for the streets, but is a constant of online spaces. In a cricket context, an example of this online toxicity can be seen in certain factions of the Bangladeshi cricket community.
Case Study: Bangladesh– Hatred, trolling and vitriol in Cricket as a Result of Nationalism
As a developing country with a population that skews young, Bangladesh’s smartphone usage, and hence social media usage, has skyrocketed with the success of its cricket team. Inducted as a ‘full member’ of the International Cricket Council as recently as 1999, the Bangladeshi cricket team traditionally struggled against established nations like India and Pakistan. Furthermore, as a result of first being a part of India, and then also being a part of Pakistan until its eventual independence, the Bangladeshi public has reportedly felt some contempt towards India and Pakistan (Vasu, 2017). This has led to legion of online trolls from Bangladesh on social media whose feelings towards their team are deeply intertwined with nationalistic feelings. These fans mercilessly troll players of other countries, journalists and officials for reasons stemming from Bangladesh’s political situation in the Asian subcontinent. There have also been several death threats made to Bangladesh’s own cricketers from local fans, a case of identity fusion between national pride and sporting teams that could have potentially life-threatening consequences. This is not a situation unique to Bangladesh. Indian players need to travel with heavy security for fear of crazed fans, and terrorist groups have been known to target Pakistan cricket games, even bombing and shooting the Sri Lanka team bus in 2009 in Lahore. As a result, one can see the ways in which international sport creates a crucible for public discontent to boil over, or in the words of George Orwell,
“I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.”
Political Exploitation: Case Study– India’s Growing Nationalism
For as long as they’ve existed, sporting contests’ ability to capture public attention has been recognised by political leaders. Because one’s national team represents the character of the nation as a whole, the team’s actions can be interpreted by politicians to convey a certain political message. Adolf Hitler used the Olympics in Germany to showcase the might of the Aryan race; the Soviet Union for a long time used sporting success to depict to its people the superiority of a socialist way of life. This means that instead of using sport to push ideas such as peace or inclusivity, they’re used to further a certain political agenda, as a dangerous form of propaganda. This can be seen in India, where the national cricket team, the nation’s sweethearts, are used strategically by leaders to further political moves. Harking back to that same 2004 tour of Pakistan, then Prime Minister Atul Bihari Vajpayee wanted to display positive relations with Pakistan in his bid to get reelected (Astill, 2012). As such, he moved the tour to the hot month of April to be right before the election, in order to swing votes his way. Similarly, in the present day, the Indian team’s continued boycott of Pakistan has been carefully orchestrated by the Indian government to hold strong feelings of discontent against Pakistanis (Oborne & Heller, 2017). Using media organisations such as Republic TV, the BJP government was able to vouch for a boycotting of the Pakistan cricket team, and thus sow seeds of discontent amongst Indians for ‘the other’, which in this case is Pakistan. Furthermore, the same government has jumped firmly on board the Indian team bandwagon by naming cricket stadiums after BJP officials, packing the Indian cricket board with relatives of BJP politicians and highlighting interactions with Indian cricketers on social media (Haigh, 2011). By using and abusing the Indian team for political directives, politicians have shown how, especially in developing countries where corruption is rampant, cricket can be used as a vessel for furthering one’s own political agenda.
Conclusion
The power of international sport to play with the heartstrings of the public give it value and meaning, but is something that can be extremely dangerous in the wrong environment. While it is impossible to remove a sport like cricket, that exists on the terms of its historical context, from politics, there are ways to make sure the political context is not exploited or allowed to fester into a cold war of sorts between sections of the public. With a concerted effort from governing bodies to move away from combative language, war imagery and focus more on the aspects of cricket such as team spirit, fair play and friendship, vitriol between fans can reduce, and by sterner policing from the International Cricket Council about political interference could reduce the chance of cricket being exploited by political leaders. As such, it can be concluded that from a political perspective, there is not an oversaturation of international cricket, but certainly an inadequate effort from the governing bodies to make sure games do not boil over into political hotbeds. While international sport may sometimes be, as George Orwell put it, “war minus the shooting”, its ability to bring people together can be the reason why the only aggression is on the field between athletes.
Work Cited
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Bandyopadhyay, Kausik. “Feel Good, Goodwill and India's Friendship Tour of Pakistan, 2004: Cricket, Politics and Diplomacy in Twenty-First-Century India.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 25, no. 12, 2008, pp. 1654–1670., doi:10.1080/09523360802327509.
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Sardesai, Rajdeep. Democracy's XI: the Great Indian Cricket Story. Juggernaut Publication, 2019.
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