Two Indian cricketing missteps

Anil Padmanabhan writes in the Indian business paper Mint that Indian cricket has scored two self-goals over the past week that could damage the prospects of using sports to ease tensions in the subcontinent - first, Sehwag's dismissive remarks of Bangladesh cricket, and second, the exclusion of Pakistan's players from the IPL. He writes that India needs to be more aware that it is now positioned on a growth trajectory that will eventually redefine its position in geopolitics.

This came through clearly in both incidents, which smack of immaturity. Popular reaction, both in Pakistan and initially in Bangladesh, was predictable—a round of India trashing. Of course, Bangladesh chose to largely ignore the slight and hence did not escalate the matter; in any case, since the remarks came from a normally reticent Sehwag, one could safely assume it was not a case of the in-your-face display of testosterone that comes naturally to Australian cricketers.

However, the IPL incident illustrated the undesirable manner in which this tournament has evolved. We would never know whether the government sent a signal to IPL or whether the franchisees, in what seems to be statistically improbable, individually came to the same decision to not bid for Pakistani cricketers. In either case, the logic was not probably thought through.