Roger Bate of the American Enterprise Institute has a trite, meandering article in The American on cricket, which came to my notice only because it was featured on Arts & Letters Daily. On top of the illogical comparisons between cricket and baseball, which are reminiscent of the idle chatter of adolescent public school layabouts (“Tendulkar would make a reasonably good baseball player.” “Ryan Howard of the Phillies might be able to play for a decent cricket team, but his immobility would make him a liability.”), I was mildly taken aback by this sentence:
While there is no love lost between Red Sox Nation and Yankees fans, India and Pakistan almost went to war over cricket (and who knows, they still might).
Wadekar Test Fifty? Pray tell, Mr. Bate, when exactly did the two nations come to the brink of war over a bat-and-ball sport? Was it, by any chance, a byproduct of cricket diplomacy? Were East Pakistani refugees fleeing a post-match lathi charge? Was 26/11 simply a few firecrackers gone wrong at the Brabourne?
India and Pakistan may at times be petty and vengeful, but Lilliput and Blefuscu they are not. The spreading of such misinformation (which, in some hands, is disinformation; I give Bate the benefit of the doubt) is reprehensible, not to mention irresponsible.
As Nitin quips:
I recall the USA and USSR went to war over Cuban cigars.
No comments:
Post a Comment