On the Couch / Nuclear cricket

"The players out there really seem to be enjoying themselves" - if they said it once, the commentators must have said it 50 times. Having a good time hardly seems the right way to be fighting a war, even a war by other means.

"Nuclear cricket" was how Hebrew University historian and fellow couch sportato Prof. Steven Aschheim termed it. But as we prepare to sit down to watch today's third match from the Afghan border town of Peshawar, there's really been no sign of any enmity during the first two such Pakistan vs. India cricket encounters in 15 years.

This is the original derby. Forget the verbal horrors at Tel Aviv's Ussishkin basketball court, the unbridled antagonism between Hapoel and Maccabi. Behind these two old neighborly antagonists lie not just nasty catcalls. Since Indian batting hero Sechin Tendulkar last played in the cauldrons of Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, the generals of both countries have indeed added a nuclear component to their armories.

Nothing, however, has gone amiss in the usually turbulent stadiums, nothing that characterized previous such cricket battles - hostile crowds, missiles thrown onto the pitch, mob violence, times when sport fed political hatreds.

It has been all smiles, genuine politeness and marvelous cricket: the only rancor a slightly over-exuberant appeal to the umpire, the only potentially lethal weapon unleashed an extra-fast ball delivered by the "Rawalpindi Express," as Pakistani bowler Shaoib Aktar is called.

It's a bygone thought that this is a quintessentially English sport. The focus has shifted to the subcontinent and the revived rivalry between the bastions of contemporary cricket is entrancing not only aficionados, but political scientists and sociologists as well.

Some observers question whether the distrust between Pakistan and India isn't too deep to be bridged by what goes on in the 22 yards between cricket wicket and wicket. And, whether this is an example that is transferable to other arenas of sporting passion.

Inherent in this cricket diplomacy is burgeoning detente. Since independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have consistently sported a hostile relationship. But the politicians on both sides, having decided to make a move from an era of war, took a major decision to build on a key element in their common English heritage - a fanatical love of cricket, especially among the critical urban middle-classes in both nations. It is an attempt to make this the successor to the China-U.S. ping-pong diplomacy of the 1970s, with the LOC (Kashmir's separating Line of Control) being transferred to the LOC men in white flannels (the Lions of Cricket).

For anything like this to happen on a Middle East sports field requires an extra ingredient, namely, both teams must be prepared to make the shift. After all, more than a quarter century has elapsed since Abie Nathan forlornly tried to convince Anwar Sadat to allow Israel and Egypt to play a soccer friendly: that hasn't happened yet, much less Israel vs. Palestine. And didn't we just breathe a sigh of relief when Betar Jerusalem's match against Bnei Sakhnin finally passed without bloodshed?

In Karachi, though, the gambit has clearly worked. Sport can help heal, it seems. A few hundred ardent Indian supporters were there to see Yousuf Youhana (a rare Pakistani Christian) demonstratively cross himself when he scored his 50th run; even more intriguingly, some notoriously fanatical Pakistani fans were found to have actually draped themselves in the Indian flag. In the past that might have occasioned a lynching. A 16-year-old explained: "Cricket is my passion, Tendulkar is the best in the world, my hero. What else matters?"

The first tests have been met gracefully. Still, it's no accident that in sporting parlance, full-scale internationals are called Tests (in cricket, they last five days). Three Test matches are scheduled for the coming weeks. But as long as there are no really outlandish umpiring decisions, we can look forward to our attention - and that of the phalanx of Pakistani security men who flood the grandstands - being focused entirely on the lusty pull shots of Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul-Haq or, at most, on the nifty sunglasses of Indian star Raoul Dravid.