The Pakistan team travelled to India to take part in the kabaddi World Cup, while the country’s hockey players are currently participating in the World Series Hockey being staged in Chandigarh. India players have also turned up for the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto International Boxing Tournament in Islamabad.
“Players of both countries have travelled to take part in different sports recently,” Merchant told The Express Tribune. “I believe that participation in such events will pave way for the resumption of cricketing ties between the two countries.
“The most difficult step is to make a start and I feel that has been taken so things are heading in the right direction.”
Merchant added that fans want to see Pakistan and India cricket stars, who have been reduced to facing each other in multi-nation tournaments in after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, in action again.
‘Need more events like this’
Meanwhile, his compatriot Muhammad Faisal Khan appreciated the arrangements made by the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA). “I must say that the PBSA has done a fantastic job in hosting this event.
“There should be more events like this in Pakistan so that the country’s image can benefit.”
Faisal expressed his astonishment at knowing that Pakistan cueists do not have departmental jobs. “We have handsome departmental jobs in India and the same should be done in Pakistan.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 7th, 2012.
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Do the names of Indian cueists Yasin Merchant and Muhammad Faisal Khan ring any bells in the citadel of south Asian Muslims, Pakistan? Despite the communal partition, India has retained its secular and pluralistic credentials. There have been aberrations but by and large India has been the safest country for the Muslims in the world. In fact the more the cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan, the more the Pakistani propaganda of Muslims subjugation in India will fall flat. I believe that people of Difa-e-Pakistan understand this fact very well and that is why they are opposed to normalization of relations between the two countries. The success of Indian Muslims is the most befitting reply to the two nation theory.