Why sports reflect a nation’s rise and fall

The Indian cricket team has recently created history. For the first time in 71 years, India have won a Test series against Australia on their home turf. Both Indian Captain Virat Kohli and head coach Ravi Shashtri described the victory as bigger an achievement than even winning the World Cups in 1983 and 2011.

The reason there has been so much hype about this win because visiting teams particularly from Asia always struggled to overpower the hosts in Test series Down Under. That’s why despite tensions, even Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated Indian Captain Virat Kohli and rest of the team.

To many, this victory may have come as a surprise given the fact that India’s away record has been awful to say the least. In fact, the same team had to face defeats in their tours to South Africa and England in 2018. But those difficult tours gave a clear hint that sooner or later India would break the hoodoo. The current bunch of Indian cricketers is not the same as their predecessors, who despite all the talent lacked the self-confidence to win overseas. This lack of confidence was one of the primary reasons that Pakistan had an edge over India till 2004.

But the question is: why the likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Saurav Ganguly did not have the same self-confidence to do better overseas as is the case with current Indian players led by flamboyant Kohli? Where did their self-confidence come from? The answer lies in the economic transformation India has undergone in the last two decades. Whether as Pakistanis we may not like it, it is a fact that India is now considered an important country in the global scheme of things because of the size of its economy and the manner with which it has grown in recent years. It is this economic prowess that gives the Indian people self-confidence. The self-confidence has trickled down to many areas, including sports. India is not only conquering new frontiers on the cricketing field but is also showing signs of improvement in other sports. So, the Indian win in Australia has not come just because of cricketing skills but also has much to do with the country’s overall progress in recent times.

On the contrary, the performance of Pakistan in sports in general and cricket in particular has been on the decline in recent years barring of course a few exceptions such as an unexpected victory in the Champions Trophy in 2017. The performance of the cricket team is in reality a reflection of Pakistan’s overall progress or lack of it on economic and political fronts. Imran Khan, the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, is widely regarded as one of the finest cricketers of all times. What differentiated him with the rest of his contemporaries was his leadership qualities and self-confidence to excel when odds were stacked against him. The unbelievable victory in 1992 World Cup was a manifestation of that approach.

Today, he is in power and certainly odds are not in his favour by any stretch of imagination given the enormity of the challenges he has to deal with. Many hope that Pakistan cricket would see a revival under his administration. For that he may need to introduce reforms to overhaul the current cricket structure. But that may not be enough. The revival of fearless brand of Pakistan cricket is actually linked to the country’s overall progress.

Have you ever heard of any underdeveloped country really topping the charts in Olympics? The toppers have always been from countries which are economic giants. This means if you want to make a mark in any sports, you need to grow as a nation. Nothing happens in isolation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2019.

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