Narendra Modi and Donald Trump opened the new stadium in 2020 and were greeted wearing masks. Photo: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki
Imagine the World Cup with the opening game and final at the Rishi Sunak Stadium. Imagine also that the head of the Football Association is the son of Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary.
This idea seems absurd. However, this is how the Cricket World Cup is used in India.
The politicization of Indian cricket will reach its climax on Saturday. One hundred thirty thousand people, believed to be the largest crowd ever to watch a cricket match, will gather at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad to watch India take on Pakistan.
Before the first game of the World Cup football there was no opening ceremony at all. However, a glittering ceremony is planned ahead of India's meeting with Pakistan. The use of sport for political purposes is most evident in countries where there has previously been little tradition of a particular game — such as Qatar, which hosts the World Cup. India hosting the Cricket World Cup is very different.
As the sporting and economic giant of cricket, India is a natural host for any world event. However, this does not mean that the political significance of the 2023 Cricket World Cup will be any less. With a population that loves cricket and the World Cup being the first that India has hosted rather than shared with its subcontinental neighbors, the tournament is an ideal tool to use for political purposes.
Modi understood the political importance of cricket long before he became prime minister in 2014. He served as Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001–2014. Over the past five years, Modi has taken on a second role: president of the Gujarat Cricket Association. He only resigned when he was elected prime minister.
Amit Shah was Modi's deputy in the Gujarat Cricket Association. He is now the Home Minister and is widely considered India's second most important politician. This is Shah's son Jay, who is the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and therefore the most powerful cricket administrator in the world.
The stadium was renamed after the Indian Prime Minister before it hosted the first Test match of 2021. Photo: Matthew Lewis/ICC via Getty Images)
Just like Gujarat is the political center of Modi's base, so it has become the base of Indian cricket. In 2015, the old Ahmedabad cricket stadium was demolished; a magnificent new stadium was built in its place.
The stadium was not used for sports for the first time. In February 2020, an emergency political rally was held here in support of Modi and Donald Trump. A year later, shortly before playing its first Test match, the Gujarat Cricket Association officially renamed the Motera Stadium as the Narendra Modi Stadium.
Before India hosted Australia in March this year, cricketers felt like they were mere fringe players ahead of the main event. On the first morning of the Test, the start was delayed to allow Modi and Anthony Albanese, Australia's prime minister, to take a chariot ride on the ground, which was supported by thousands of people who received tickets from the BJP, Modi's party. BCCI Secretary Jay Shah was also visible, presenting Modi with a photograph of, er, Modi himself.
Since 2013, India has refused to play Pakistan outside of multi-team competitions. Pakistani players have also been banned from the Indian Premier League since the inaugural season in 2008.
However, while the dearth of India-Pakistan matches means they could seem even tighter, players are playing down the idea. “I just treated the game like another cricket game,” Virat Kohli said. Whenever they have met in recent years, the matches have been characterized by genuine warmth between the opposing players.
Cricket matches between India and Pakistan have simultaneously brought out the best and worst in the region. After Pakistan won the grand Chennai Test by 12 runs in 1999, the players took a victory lap and received a standing ovation. During India's Friendship Tour to Pakistan in 2004, their first Test tour in 14 years, fans embraced warmly across the border; It was joked that some Pakistanis even pretended to be Indians because of the hospitality they received. Whenever countries meet at the World Cup, fans from both sides sit happily next to each other.
Pakistan is preparing for all weather conditions, including dew, by holding a night session at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Photo: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki
However, there is a dark side to the history of cricket between India and Pakistan. Bal Thackeray, the far-right Indian leader who died in 2012, said he wanted Indian Muslims to «have tears in their eyes every time India loses to Pakistan» to prove their loyalty. In 2003, a Muslim man was killed in Ahmedabad following riots surrounding a World Cup match in South Africa. The fact that Ahmedabad, the epicenter of the 2002 Gujarat riots that killed nearly 1,000 Muslims, is the site of this clash adds to the alarm.
Saturday's game will have a much deeper meaning, said Dr Amar Sohal, a research fellow at the university. Cambridge. “This is about the BJP-dominated Board of Control for Cricket in India insisting on hosting the main match of the tournament at the Prime Minister's own stadium and reinforcing the carefully crafted myth of Modi's invincibility.”
While the BCCI refuses to engage with Pakistan bilaterally, citing security concerns, «it insists on hosting its arch-rival in perhaps India's most hostile and polarized city,» Sohal says. “Ahmedabad is the great bastion of modern Hindu nationalism — an ideology whose essence is that the Muslim, whether Indian or Pakistani, is designated as the permanent enemy.”
“Ahmedabad is a major urban center of the Prime Minister's home state. minister, where his exclusive religious policy first found currency. This seems to be a signal showing the Pakistan Cricket Board and the wider Pakistani establishment who is boss.»
India have won all seven previous ODI World Cup matches between these countries. Those in Ahmedabad, which may or may not include Modi, will be expecting no less than an eighth victory.
While good relations between supporters of both sides are usually a hallmark of the games, this time there will be none at all Pakistani fans as hundreds of visa applications are delayed. A contingent of Pakistani journalists will be there, but only lightly. Delays in issuing visas forced journalists to miss the first two matches of the World Cup in Pakistan.
Despite all the real fears that many have about the game, there are reasons for hope. Although India's ruling party does not have a Muslim MP for the first time in its history, the Indian side remains a bastion of diversity. Jasprit Bumrah, the leader of the attack, is a Sikh; Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami, two of the star fast bowlers, are Muslims.
Since their arrival in India, the Pakistan team has been received with love. «It's like we're at home,» said captain Babar Azam during the team's stay in Hyderabad.
Such cross-border warmth is incompatible with the real tension the game will bring. “This kind of contradiction,” says Faisal Devji of Oxford University, “is characteristic of the relationship between the two countries and their people.”
In Ahmedabad, the eternal paradox of the meeting of India and Pakistan will be truer than ever before. Perhaps no other sports match evokes such anticipation—or relief when it's over.
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