What makes a great sporting rivalry? More than anything else, the answer is regular engagement. When Spain’s La Liga releases its fixture list each summer, the first thing a Real Madrid fan looks for are the two dates for El Clásico against Barcelona. He or she will then search for the home and away matches against Atletico, their cross-town rivals. In cricket, thousands of fans get on to travel and ticketing apps as soon as the Ashes schedule is announced. In baseball, a New York Yankees fan will be sure to pencil in the dates for games against the Boston Red Sox as soon as the details are available.
Such is the nature of fandom. In the same way we tell time based on 12 on the clock face, these rivalries signpost our sport-watching lives. Some, like the LA Lakers against the Boston Celtics in the NBA or New Zealand’s All Blacks against South Africa’s Springboks in Rugby Union, have nothing to do with geography, and everything to do with the weight of historical results. But the mystique endures because they play each other every so often, and the fans look forward to those matches unlike any other.
Does the India-Pakistan cricket rivalry still have that magical quality, or is it slowly fading because of the lack of regular contests? The International Cricket Council (ICC) ensures that their ‘draw’ always places the two in the same group in every major tournament, but those competitions and the Asia Cup aside, we’ve seen a big chill for 15 years now.
It’s futile and beyond the scope of sports journalism to delve into the politics of it. What we can safely state are facts. Virat Kohli, who made his international red-ball debut in the Caribbean in 2011, has never played a Test against Pakistan. The chances are that he never will. Rohit Sharma, who played his first ODI more than 16 years ago, has played Pakistan 17 times in the format. Just for perspective, Irfan Pathan, who was a regular in the India side for just five years, played Pakistan 23 times.
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The man that Kohli most often gets compared to, Sachin Tendulkar, played Pakistan 69 times in ODIs alone. Each time Tendulkar played, there was a narrative around the game. in the early years, it was the sheer wonder of a teenager taking on the pace of Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and Imran Khan. In the late 1990s, his tussles with Saqlain Mushtaq’s off-spin were closely followed. And in the later years, the talk was all about how he could negotiate the pace of Shoaib Akhtar, the artfulness of Mohammed Asif and the guile of Saeed Ajmal.
There is no such story around Kohli. We try to create some, whether based around Mohammed Amir a half-decade ago, or Shaheen Shah Afridi now, but when players play each other once a year or less, it’s hard for them or the fans to drum up the same intensity of feeling. On social media, some Indian fans are visibly dismayed each time Kohli greets Pakistani players warmly or chats to them after games. But the reality is that they’re almost strangers, especially when compared to a Tendulkar and Wasim or Sunil Gavaskar and Imran. Without familiarity, how can there be (on-field) contempt?
There is a video doing the rounds of two Pakistani supporters in Indian jerseys talking before the Pakistan-Bangladesh Super Fours game in Lahore a few days ago. They’re imploring India to tour their country, so that they can watch the likes of Kohli, Rohit and Jasprit Bumrah in the flesh before they call it a day. Nearly two decades ago, when India toured Pakistan for the first time in nearly 15 years, thousands of fans were given visas to go across the border and watch the games. Very few returned with anything other than praise for the hospitality with which they were received. Now, getting entry to watch an India-Pakistan game is almost like buying a lottery ticket. If you go by the sums for which some tickets are changing hands ahead of the World Cup game in Ahmedabad on October 14, entire families might have to sacrifice their kidneys to some organ-harvesting racket.
We understand that sport isn’t played in a vacuum, and that politics will always have the last word. But for a generation of Indian fans – and we mean genuine sports-lovers, not the chest-thumping jingoists who only turn up when Pakistan are in opposition – especially below the age of 20, Australia long ago supplanted Pakistan as India’s main rival. But Australia will always have the Ashes. There’s no question that the little urn comes first. Someday, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, South Asia’s needle match will once again be a regular part of our lives.
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