More Than a Game Part One

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (July 9^th 2009) [1]

Editor’s Note

The issue of terrorism and sport’s role in combatting it remains pertinent. We have covered this and other issues for several years. The story of Sri Lanka’s and also Pakistan’s love of cricket and fight against terrorism is important and still relevant.

The Editor

Pride and Heartbreak

After everything that the two sides had been through in recent months few neutrals could object to the friendliest rivals in cricket contesting the final of the Twenty20 World Cup last month. Sri Lanka had borne the mantle of favourites well until the final, which Pakistan surprisingly won convincingly.

“I’m very proud of the way the team has responded – the way they’ve played: the attitude they’ve shown, so a lot of things to take from here,” said Sri Lanka’s captain, Kumar Sangakkara.

“It’s heartbreak when you lose in the final but then, Pakistan outplayed us. We’ve had [Tillakaratne] Dilshan firing throughout the tournament and unfortunately, we can’t expect him to do it every single time. There are other batsmen in the side who have to take responsibility. We had a great tournament. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the basics right in our batting.”

Younis Khan’s Plea

Draped in Pakistan’s flag, their outgoing Twenty20 captain, Younis Khan, announced his retirement from that format of the game, dedicated the victory to the memory of the late Pakistan coach, Bob Woolmer, and called for international teams to help his country to rebuild through cricket by touring his country again. Sadly, it is a forlorn hope at least in the short term, but cricket is vital both to Pakistan and prospects of peace in the region as a whole.

“I think we’ve done brilliantly, even if Lahore never happened,” said Khan. “It’s a fantastic achievement and Lahore was the furthest thing from our mind, coming here today and playing in a final. The team’s done a really great job mentally getting over all of those things.”

Sangakkara on Cricket Against Terrorism

Nobody illustrates the importance of cricket in unifying a war-torn nation more than the victims of last March’s atrocity themselves – the Sri Lankan cricket team[2].

“Back home everyone was on edge that we got into the final, just to see what happened,” he said. “I know that Sri Lankans love their cricket and they love the fact that we’ve come so far, so thank you for your support and we hope that we made you proud.”

Sangakkara believes in the unifying power of cricket as does his team. The sensational leg-spinner Ajantha Mendis never knew anything but a war-torn country until the twenty-six year long civil war ended in May. Amid the suicide-bombings, assassinations and terror of the brutal war, they continued to play cricket, convinced that they played for everyone – Sinhalese and Tamil alike.

“Sri Lanka has moved forward greatly and unity has always been in Sri Lanka,” said Sangakkara. “We’ve had a war yes, but as a team, as a country we’ve always been united in almost everything that we’ve done, so this win is going to be another step forward in that progress and I think when you take our team, as I’ve said before, what we represent we think is the entirety of Sri Lanka.”

Hope

The island nation endured a debilitating and nasty civil war for more than a quarter of a century, so the current generation of players and their predecessors had to endure stringent security measures in order to play at all. The war began on July 23^rd 1983 and ended in the military defeat of the so-called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) by the Sri Lankan armed forces on May 18^th 2009. It had claimed 80000 lives, most of whom were civilians.

There were peace initiatives and ceasefires, but ultimately the dictatorial leadership of the Tigers by Velupillai Prabhakaran proved disastrous. Refusing to compromise on the demand for an independent Tamil state in the north and east of the island, Prabhakaran ordered a boycott of elections that resulted in the return to government of Mahinda Rajapaksa and a significant shift in policy. Rajapaksa was ultimately able to regain all the territory lost to the Tigers and deliver a decisive end to the conflict with the death of Prabhakaran and crushing of the Tamil Tigers.

It meant that peace has returned to the country and Rajapaksa has the difficult task of restoring the economy and governing in peace-time. Cricket has a part to play in the process of unifying the island and Pakistan’s scheduled tour will help to heal several wounds.

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[1] This article was first published in the Magazine in 2009. We publish it again as the issues that it raises remain pertinent.

[2] In March 2009 terrorists attacked the team bus carrying Sri Lanka’s cricketers to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore for the Second Test Match against Pakistan. The attack killed seven people, six police officers and the driver of the bus. At least six members of the Sri Lankan cricket team were injured.

In late August 2016 Naik Muhammad, Abdul Wahab and Adnan Arshad, who were alleged to have taken part in the attack were killed in a shootout with police in Lahore. Attiqur Rehman, who was wanted over the Moon Market attack of 2008 which killed 70 people in Lahore, was also killed in the shootout. Adnan Arshad, Ibrahim Khalil, Obaidullah, Javed Anwar, Abdul Wahab, and Zubair (aka Nail Muhammad) had pleaded not guilty at a court hearing previously. Mohsin Rasheed and Abdul Rehman had already been declared suspects.

The mastermind of the attack, Qari Ajmal, a leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangi, was subsequently killed in Afghanistan in October 2016. International cricket began to return to Pakistan in 2015 with Zimbabwe in men’s limited overs cricket and Bangladesh’s women came there the same year. The Pakistan Super League was played in the country in 2017. Among those who came were England’s Dawid Malan and the West Indies’ Darren Sammy and Marlon Samuels. Sri Lanka also visited for one match although some refused to come. The West Indies came in 2018 and in 2019 Sri Lanka toured for limited overs matches in October 2019 as their top players still were not ready to come. In December 2019 Sri Lanka returned for a Test series – just over a decade after the Lahore attack