This was India’s second win in two group games and Pakistan’s second defeat in as many games. Pakistan, who are not just the hosts of the event, but also the defending champions, were at the receiving end of the ridicule in the trending social media messages and will need plenty of things to go in their favour for them to qualify for the semis. Incidentally, Kohli played a masterful innings on the way to his 51st ODI half-century. Kohli became the fastest batter to score 14,000 ODI runs as he reached the landmark against Pakistan on Sunday.
While the passion of fans for India Pakistan cricket clash is natural, the spread of vituperative comments and counter comments - bordering on hatred - through media and social media is a concerning trend. The genesis for the animosity between the two neighbours, extending even to the sporting area, more particularly Cricket matches, traces its history to the partition time and a period just before the partition of India, and the subsequent decades of conflict, territorial disputes, and mutual distrust. This animosity leads amplification of emotions and the media in both countries often frame the cricket match between India and Pakistan as a "war cry" rather than a sporting event, invoking nationalist sentiments and the result is there for everyone to see on social media.
In the era of digital media, which preys on sensationalism, people use social media platforms to prioritize clicks/views over nuance, using provocative headlines, memes, or exaggerated narratives to exploit rivalry and ensure that such narratives go viral and start trending. This is what happened in yesterday's match which India won comprehensively. The social media echo chambers and the algorithms used in these social media platforms - which help such echo chambers - promote polarizing content, rewarding outrage. The resultant toxic comments, trolling, and misinformation spread rapidly, drowning out rational discourse. Adding to the issue is Cricket as a sport is intertwined with identity in both nations and therefore, defeat on the cricket field is made to be a blow to national honour, prompting hostile reactions, and trending in the media.
This vituperative narrative reminds me of a time in history when India and Pakistan - the two arch rivals - joined hands to host the Reliance World Cup in 1987, and in the process helped the Indian sub-continent, more particularly the BCCI, which administers cricket in India, to be the most powerful cricketing nation in the world. This is evidenced in the ongoing ICC Championship where the BCCI had the last laugh in ensuring that all the matches where India features in the tournament are played on neutral ground, notwithstanding the fact Pakistan is hosting this ICC Championship tournament.
Around four decades ago, post the 1983 Prudential World Cup which India won, the Indian and Pakistani cricket teams and the political leaders and administrators of the game of cricket joined hands to break the monopoly of England on the game of cricket by snatching the Prudential Cricket World Cup and hosting the tournament jointly as Reliance World Cup in India and Pakistan in 1987. Here is a brief tale of this extraordinary camaraderie between the two arch rivals, and how this story unfolded.
The 1983 Prudential World Cup was won by India led by their Captain Kapil Dev, defeating the favourites, West Indies. India, the underdogs, who were never expected to go beyond the group games played exceptionally winning the tournament to a euphoric and heroic welcome back home. India winning the Prudential World Cup in 1983 helped the game of cricket, which was already a darling of the masses in the subcontinent, to excite the business and political class, who used the game to further their interests and also that of the game thus helping Indian cricket administrators – BCCI – to have their clout to be the world leaders in cricket administration.
While a majority of Indians are well informed about the game of cricket, their cricketing heroes, ICC Cricket World Cup in all its formats- including our World Cup victories in 1983 and 2011, and 2023 - but not many are aware of what has made India to be an undisputed global leader in the cricket administration. Therefore, I am writing this post not about the India Pakistan Match, which ended yesterday with an emphatic win by the Indian team, but about the robust foundations that went into making India a predominant force in international cricket administration and paying respect to those extraordinary people - Politicians and businessmen and women - who helped India to be the undisputed leader of International Cricket administration - NKP Salve, Mrs Indiara Gandhi, Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance Industries Ltd, and the cricket administration and the political class in Pakistan.
The Cricket World Cup, including the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy, a flagship event of the International Cricket Council (ICC), is one of the world's most-watched sporting events. The participation of tens of millions of Indians and several hundreds of thousands of overseas Indians as spectators, the companies who sponsor the game, and the men who manage and influence this game is what makes these tournaments - including the ongoing quadrennial ICC Champions Trophy 2025 - so very special. The Cricket World Cup, in all its formats, is now hosted on a rotation basis by different cricket-playing nations, once every four years or so including the Champions Trophy.
ICC Championship Trophy traces its history to the first edition of the game played under the name of Benson Hedges World Championship of Cricket, 1985. India won this trophy. Thereafter, this tournament has evolved to become a quadrennial tournament involving the top eight ranked ICC teams, and the last tournament was held in 2017, which was won by Pakistan. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 edition of the ICC Champions Trophy could not be organised.
The World Cup Cricket began in 1975. The first three versions of the Cricket World Cups - The Prudential World Cups (named after the sponsors) - were hosted only by England in 1975, 1979, and 1983. Until then England alone was believed to be capable of organising huge resources to stage an event of such magnitude. The first three World Cup matches consisted of 60, six-ball, overs per team, played during the daytime in traditional form, with the players wearing cricket whites and using red cricket balls. The power dynamics of the game of cricket were mostly with England who were unwittingly supported by their arch-cricketing adversary the Australians, while other teams including India were mostly bystanders. The fourth World Cup in 1987 changed all of this for good and ever since India has been a dominant player in administering and controlling the game of Cricket, courtesy of Pakistan, who helped India dethrone the dominant England in administering the game.
The Reliance World Cup 1987 marked the first step towards altering international cricket's power dynamics and gave birth to a rotation system for hosting the World Cups, every four years. The Indian Cricket administrators, led by Mr NKP Salve, buoyed by India winning the 1983 Prudential World Cup, emboldened their bid for the staging rights for the 1987 World Cup, jointly with Pakistan. It is interesting to note that both India and Pakistan, which are viewed as arch rivals - not just on the cricketing grounds but even otherwise - joined hands in ensuring the cricket monopoly that England had in hosting World Cup matches changed forever.
Moving the World Cup away from England was not so simple, since it involved one of the most complicated negotiations, unprecedented financial resources, and political manoeuvring not just between India and Pakistan but also with the other cricket-playing nations, the ICC, leaders, politicians, cricket administrators and businessmen. It was the combined spirit and efforts of businessman Dhirubhai Ambani, Cricket administrator and politician N K P Salve, and former Prime Ministers Mrs Indira Gandhi and Mr Rajiv Gandhi among others who made this impossible-looking task possible.
Most unfortunately, the contributions of these leaders who helped India to be the world leader in cricket administration have not adequately been acknowledged by the cricket-loving fans in India. The above Indian leader supported by many other cricket aficionados, showed how politicians, professionals, and industrialists can join hands and help to shape the world through the medium of sports including bridging the political divide and other fissures that existed between India and Pakistan.
Today, when India has compelled ICC and the Pakistan Cricket Board to accept their demand to play the ICC Champions Trophy, in Dubai not in Pakistan, the host country's chosen venue, we must remember and remind ourselves that this dominance of the BCCI in world cricket administration is borne out from the early support and cooperation and collaboration that India got from Pakistan. India and Pakistan had joined hands to build a better relationship and had ensured that cricket domination by England ended with the passage of power to the Indian subcontinent. This was an outcome of the efforts by NKP Salve who kick-started the efforts to end the dominance of England on world cricket.
The efforts of NKP Salve for breaking the monopoly that England had on cricket administration and hosting the Cricket World Cup in India started with one phone call from the PMO to Dhirubhai Ambani on one of those monsoon mornings in Mumbai, way back in 1983. Dhirubhai Ambani was asked to urgently meet Mrs Gandhi, the then PM of India, within a couple of days. Dhirubhai did not know the reasons for the urgency of the meeting nor did he want to know, all he wanted was to take the earliest flight to meet the PM. The very next day he landed in Delhi and was at Mrs Indira Gandhi’s residence, at 10 Janpath to meet the prime minister. N K P Salve, the then president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), was also asked by the PMO to be present for the meeting. Salve was then a cabinet minister in Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet and was very highly rated by her for his integrity and commitment, both as a Minister and as a lawyer politician. Salve had sounded Mrs Indira Gandhi about his plans for shifting the World Cup Cricket from England to India.
Mrs Indira Gandhi came straight to the point and asked Dhirubhai Ambani whether he would financially support the initiative of her government to try and bring the Cricket World Cup to India, which to her was a national prestige. Dhirubhai Ambani, having heard the PM, realised that the image and prestige of India were at stake and with no hesitation whatsoever, agreed to bear “all the financial liabilities” associated with the event without even bothering to understand what the financial scope of this commitment was. He nodded in agreement and uttered, “Madam, yes, I would be too happy to give a blank cheque to cover the entire cost of the tournament since it is for a national cause.” Dhirubhai, the grand visionary that he was, had immediately realised that the Indian honour was at stake and for him, this in itself was reason enough to offer a blank cheque to the PM.
But then what prompted Mrs Gandhi to stake her claim for hosting the 1987 World Cup Cricket in India? Well, it is an interesting story, which began at Lord’s on the 25th of June 1983, the day when Kapil’s men made history. The Indian team - the underdogs in the tournament with a ridiculously low possibility of winning any single match, let alone the tournament, had miraculously reached the finals and were to play the defending champions, the indomitable rampaging West Indies, led by their legendary captain Clive Lloyd at the Lord’s. India had defeated the hosts, England, in the semi-final, to reach the finals.
N K P Salve, the president of the BCCI, had requested the authorities at Lord’s to provide two tickets for the final, which were meant for Mr. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, the Indian High Commissioner to the US at the time, and his wife Maya. Most shockingly, the authorities at Lord’s had turned down the request of the BCCI president. He was not even provided the priced tickets let alone the complimentary VIP passes to watch the finals. This was too embarrassing even for Salve, an epitome of gentlemanliness.
The president of the Cricket Board of one of the finalist teams could not offer even two tickets to an Indian ambassador. It was at this instance that Salve, perhaps, decided not to take this insult to his country lying down. As luck would have it, the Indian team won the 1983 Prudential World Cup and Salve lost no time in taking the Indian winning team on their return to New Delhi from Heathrow, to meet the prime minister, Mrs Gandhi and it was during this meeting that Salve narrated about his insult to the PM and expressed his interest to consider hosting the next edition of the world cup in India. Salve also informed the PM about his discussions of a joint bid for hosting this event with Pakistan, which he had with Pakistan's cricketing chief, Air Marshall Noor Khan.
The political commitment to the game shown by Mrs Gandhi was ably supported by her Pakistani counterpart. With financial and political commitments in place, the ball was set rolling for luring the eight full members and 21 associate members of the ICC to agree to shift the World Cup from England to the Indian subcontinent. Every one of them including the players and cricketing boards was offered such an extraordinary financial allurement that it was just a matter of time before the English opposition was blown away and there was consensus in shifting the next World Cup to India.
Most unfortunately, when everything had fallen in place, Mrs Gandhi was assassinated in October 1984 and there was huge uncertainty about the continued political and financial commitments. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi succeeded his mother to become the Prime Minister and continued his patronage of the efforts of Mr. NKP Salve and others in hosting the Cricket World Cup in India. Dhirubhai also attached top priority to this task and assigned the work of managing this mega event to his younger son Anil Ambani. Anil Ambani did an admirable job in professionally managing this entire event, including providing more than adequate financial resources for the tournament. NKP Salve was later made the Chairman of the India-Pakistan Joint Managing Committee for the Reliance Cup 1987. The massive success of that tournament saw the World Cup live up to its name as a world event played by teams from all the continents. The Reliance Cup also marked a step in the shifting of the cricket headquarters from Lord's London to Eden Gardens, Kolkata, culminating in the election of Jagmohan Dalmiya as the first Asian president of the ICC and the rest became history.
The Reliance Cup was a major success with packed crowds thronging large stadiums and playing host to every single match, played in India and Pakistan. Both the host teams, India and Pakistan, performed exceptionally well with impressive performances in the group stage and ended up group toppers and qualified for the semi-finals. India lost in the Semi-finals to England, in a match that was played in Mumbai in front of a massive crowd. Pakistan too lost its semi-final match against Australia and in the finals played in front of a mammoth Eden Garden crowd of more than 100,000, the Australians defeated the English team to begin their dominance over the cricket World Cup.
Ever since every single ICC World Cup has been a roaring success with a huge audience, mostly Indians, and unprecedented sponsors for whom the ICC World Cup including the T20 World Cup and so also the IPL are extremely important events from the advertising standpoint.
Today, when we herald the Indian victory over its arch-rival Pakistan in the ICC Champions Trophy, it is time for us to look back and see how both India and Pakistan came together to break the monopoly of England and look forward to how they must come together to solve all their bilateral issues for the larger good of their citizens who are great ambassadors for the game of Cricket.
On this solemn occasion, while wishing the Indian Cricket team all the very best for winning this coveted trophy, I feel we must remember and credit Mr. NKP Salve, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Anil and Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance Industries and all other stakeholders including Pakistan who helped India become a global leader in cricket administration. We must also appreciate all these leaders for their extraordinary political and business leadership, shown for the game of Cricket, which to every Indian is nothing short of a religion. Let us also hope that both the Indian and Pakistani leaders make every possible effort to improve their relations not forgetting the famous statement of Atal Bihari Vajpayee who had said Geography can not be changed or altered.
Hopefully, our neighbour will realise that harbouring and promoting terror activities against India will only hasten the economic distress that they are passing through and that cooperating with India, the way they did earlier while organising the Reliance World Cup 1987, will help them in not only in improving cricket in Pakistan but also financially and politically.
