After continuous pressure by the Pakistan Cricket Board and after a formal complaint was lodged with the International Cricket Council to ensure that Pakistani journalists and fans get Indian visas to watch and cover the ICC World Cup 2023, the Indian embassy yesterday finally started the visa process for Pakistani journalists. Pakistani journalists and fans have been waiting for their visas for quite some time now. The World Cup has already started and Pakistan has already played two of its matches. On October 14, Pakistan will be playing India – one of the biggest matches of the cricketing event – and yet the visa process has just begun. According to ICC law, the host country – in this case India – has to issue visas to fans and journalists for covering ICC events, but the way that India handled visas for the Pakistani team that got visas at the eleventh hour, and now taking its sweet time in issuing visas to journalists and fans speaks volumes about the seriousness of the host country and how India has mixed sports with politics.
Action should be taken against a country that cannot abide by ICC’s laws and has held the entire tournament hostage to its local and domestic politics but it is no secret that due to the BCCI’s influence and monetary control in the ICC, there is not much that the cricket council can do in front of the bully that is the BCCI. It is unfortunate the way the BCCI under the Modi regime has become a mouthpiece of the BJP. This became most transparent in how Amit Shah’s son, Jay Shah, who happens to be the president of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) ruined the Asia Cup 2023 by moving most of the matches to Sri Lanka in the monsoon season despite Pakistan being the host country. The way Pakistani presenter Zainab Abbas had to leave India amid security threats and a cyber crime case against her also points to the sad reality that the Indian authorities did not want to provide security to a Pakistani. The ICC should not have buckled under pressure – while there is no official confirmation of why Zainab had to leave India, it is no secret that she was being threatened by extremist Indians. The PCB has already asked India to evaluate Pakistani players’ security in India.
Due to the Indian government’s attitude, cricket fans on both sides of the border have suffered as we haven’t played India in a bilateral series since 2012. The Modi government’s anti-Pakistan sentiment is now on steroids. We hope that India realizes how mixing sports with politics will only lead to acrimony. Cricket was called a gentleman’s game but it seems like India is not a worthy host in any manner of this game.