An examination of my Facebook updates and tweets would indicate that I have, at various times, supported cricket teams as diverse as the New Zealanders, the Sri Lankans, the English, the South Africans, the Australians and the Pakistanis. The common link: I have backed every cricket team that has played against India in the past couple of years.
My motivation is pure, unalloyed patriotism. I want the Indian team to win the next cricket World Cup, or, at the least, to be as competitive as possible. As I see it, India's chances at the World Cup would be optimised if it suffered a series of losses in the inconsequential matches that precede the World Cup. Hence, I will wholeheartedly support any team that plays against India, until the World Cup begins.
The World Cup is due to be held in Australia and New Zealand. As of now, the Indian squad appears to be a bunch of no-hopers, especially under Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) conditions. At least five teams would fancy their chances of downing India down under, where the Indian batting is unstable and the bowling is atrocious.
Wholesale changes - four or five new faces - might improve India's chances at the World Cup. Nothing could make the prospects worse than they appear to be at the moment. Changes on such a scale are very unlikely and, perhaps, even impossible. However, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is only likely to be provoked into making any major selection changes if India loses a lot of games by embarrassing margins - hence the logic of backing India's opposition and hoping that the cricket team suffers a sequence of humiliating defeats.
It is possible that the motivations of the 60-odd Kashmiri students who cheered for Pakistan during the recent Asia Cup were somewhat at variance with mine. However, their actions and mine were pretty much indistinguishable - we all cheered for a team that was playing against India. It has been assumed, on the basis of historical context, that the Kashmiri students were supporting Pakistan for "other non-patriotic reasons". What if that assumption is wrong, or if the Kashmiri students say their collective motivation differed from the general assumption? How would you disprove such an assertion?
Should motivation even matter in such a context - and if it does, shouldn't the same standards be applied in even-handed fashion? There are multitudes of British and Australian citizens who cheer for India (and for Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) when India (or the other nations) plays England and Australia. Should these people be immediately charged with sedition and have their citizenships revoked in some warped version of the Tebbit Test?
Equating patriotism with sports support may be inherently a little absurd, but one could apply a version of this principle to more serious matters. Let us say India is conducting a war game, simulating military manoeuvres against a potential enemy or enemies. Would you rather that the simulations at the war games went smoothly, or badly?
It appears to be common sense to hope that any serious logistic issues would show up in the simulations rather than in an actual shooting war. In fact, that is precisely the point of conducting simulations. Similarly, one would hope that defence equipment failures occur in peacetime rather than in wartime. Disaster management plans and business contingency plans are based on similar principles: the planners hope to identify and solve potential issues before a mission-critical failure results.
Winning the Asia Cup would mean very little, at least when weighed against the possibility of winning the World Cup. It was an entirely inconsequential set of "friendlies". I am happy that India got knocked out of the Asia Cup with a poor showing. I'm also happy that this followed closely upon disappointing tours of New Zealand and South Africa. This makes it a little more likely that the team will be more competitive at the World Cup, as I fervently desire. This may be a flawed line of logic since I am not a cricket expert. But is it seditious?
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
