Let's not reduce cricketers to pawns: Rajdeep Sardesai's take on no-handshake row

4 months ago

Let's not reduce cricketers to pawns in a larger battle, only to cater to domestic constituencies looking to settle scores. Sports is expected, my friends, to bring out the best in us, not the worst. Else we are hurtling down a very dark and slippery slope, where players will be expected to play the role of soldiers in uniform.

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00:00I have a my take. I feel strongly about these issues so let me give you my take. I have always

00:05been a firm advocate of Indo Park cricket in the hope that sports can build bridges where politics

00:11cannot. No longer. The hope of sports as a bridge builder between two hostile neighbors has been

00:18dimmed in recent times. The terror attack in Pehalgaam and the complete lack of empathy shown

00:25by the Pakistani army state and dare I say even more troubling the incendiary remarks made by

00:31some former Pakistani players make it apparent that it could no longer be business as usual with

00:37Islamabad. The Modi government made it clear that blood and water cannot flow together by putting

00:42the Indus Water Treaty on hold. How then can cricket and terror coexist? Last night's game only further

00:49shows how sport is only now an instrument for competitive jingoism. When a game becomes

00:55a platform for war minus the shooting, when performative nationalism takes over and when

01:02players cannot even show the minimum courtesy of shaking hands with each other there is something

01:08horribly wrong. Next time either don't play cricket with Pakistan or if you believe it's a compulsion

01:13then gracefully accept conventions of sport including a handshake. Let's not reduce cricketers to pawns in a

01:20larger battle only to cater to domestic constituencies looking to settle scores. Sports is expected my

01:27friends to bring out the best in us not the worst else we are hurtling down a very dark and slippery

01:34slope where players will be expected to play the role of soldiers in uniform and if the players BCCI and GOI

01:42government of India want to truly put the victims of PALGAM first. Here is my suggestion. All your

01:48earnings from India-Pakistan cricket games should go to support the families of the victims of Pakistan-based terror.

Let's not reduce cricketers to pawns: Rajdeep Sardesai's take on no-handshake row

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