Once more, without feeling

Frequency breeds boredom. India and Pakistan are playing each other so often these days that some of the magic is beginning to go out of the rivalry. England don't play Australia every year in a Test series - Asians are fond of calling the Pakistan-India encounters the Ashes of Asia - but we think nothing of subjecting our players, fans and viewers to the same kind of pre-match bravado (usually led by Shoaib Akhtar's vision of what he is going to do to the leading Indian batsmen), media analyses and post-match consolations ("It wasn't India or Pakistan who won; cricket won"). A sameness is creeping upon the meetings, a predictability, a sense of déjà vu. But who will take the first steps towards a rationalisation that will see four- or six-year cycles?

Nine months after India lost a Test match to Pakistan in Bangalore, they begin another series, this time in Pakistan. Sandwiched between home series against Sri Lanka and England, that tour is probably being seen as a money-spinner by the respective boards, but the golden goose just might end up committing suicide. There is only so much the public can take of this sibling rivalry with its political overtones and cute stories of fans crossing the border to meet relatives. One of the untold stories of the last tour was of the number of "accredited" Pakistani journalists who didn't turn up in the press boxes, preferring instead to go shopping or watch Salman Khan movies.

Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shaharyar Khan thinks we are overdoing it. He said in Mumbai recently: "There's been too much of bilateral contests between the two of us and I don't want the enthusiasm to wane in a contest which is tougher than the Ashes series. We met each other on 14 occasions last year and are to meet at least 11 times this season, which means one match every month."

If no Indian official has endorsed that, it is because of the old mindset which places an India-Pakistan series above all else in his small world. It took the players to make known their unhappiness over a tight schedule to get the board to grant them a few days grace. There is too much cricket anyway, and too much India-Pakistan cricket.

In the 54 years of cricketing relations between the two countries, about half that number has been without contests in either country. From the 1954-55 series (challenged only by the 1960-61 one as the most boring in the history of the game), the pattern was set. Both those series, five Test matches each, were drawn 0-0. The best shots on the former tour were reportedly played by the Indian manager Lala Amarnath who, provoked by an inebriated Abdul Hafeez Kardar (accompanied by three well-built Pathans and looking for a fight, according to Amarnath's biographer) slapped him a few times in the lobby of a Lahore hotel.

Fear of defeat was the strongest emotion. Either team could lose anywhere, but not to each other. If that happened, the earth stopped for a while in its track around the sun, and captains were rolled down the nearest hill. Or so it appeared, considering the manner in which the teams focused on preserving their untouched state with all the determination of some girls protecting their virginity.

Thus only 19 of 53 Tests between the two countries have produced results. The abruptness with which losing captains were relieved of their jobs ensured that going for a win was the last resort. Long breaks between series meant that there was an urgency when the teams did play, based on the fear that political or other developments might cut short these engagements.

There was a break of 17 years after the 1961 series and another of 10 years following the 0-0 verdict in Pakistan in 1989-90. In the 12 years following the first resumption, the teams played 29 Tests; 21 were drawn.

Later there was a new element that kept the interest going - one-day cricket. And not just one-day cricket but one-day cricket played in neutral venues from Sharjah to Toronto and through the World Cups. India beat Pakistan at every World Cup but lost often in other tournaments.

Not surprisingly, one-day cricket brought out the worst in the spectators and television viewers. The cliché that was mouthed most often was, "We must play each other as often as possible to remove the acrimony from our encounters." Wasim Akram said it, Sunil Gavaskar said it, and so did a host of lesser players and officials. As one millennium came to an end and another began, it became clear that there would be no Amarnath v Kardar type of encounter among the players. Sachin Tendulkar was universally respected; so was Akram; there were Pakistani players who called senior Indian players "bhai" and Indian players who did likewise.

The cliché was true. The series of matches against each other had taken the element of otherness out of the equation, and even young players who graduated to the big league with their heads full of anti-Pakistani and anti-Indian feelings respectively realised that the opposition were human too, laughed at the same jokes, and were worried about the same things.

No one was likely to say, as the Cambridge-educated Majid Khan did in the 1970s, that "Pakistan is ready for a 1000-year war with India." Familiarity had bred affection, and it was not unusual for an Akram to pass on bowling tips to an Irfan Pathan across the border; the last of the consistent India-baiters was probably Javed Miandad, who said a couple of years ago that Irfan was no bowler and that there were cricketers like him in every side street of Pakistan.

As Pakistan grew more confident as a nation, there was no need to define themselves in terms of India. This process was helped by the increasing levels of professionalism (in attitude) in the two countries. Occasionally an Imran Khan might take a dig at India, but the players and the public realised this was a political necessity, and not to be taken seriously. From the Indian side, the recent captains - Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid - came from either the south of the country or the east; it was mainly the north that had been affected by Partition and continued to remember the trauma through family stories.

In recent years, therefore, the kind of intensity that makes for violence (or blandness, arising from the reluctance of captains to experiment, for fear of failure) has been missing. And although television brought into drawing rooms some of the boorishness of some brainwashed spectators (leading to a boycott of matches in Sharjah, for example), pockets of serious dissent were few.

Rebels had been absorbed into the mainstream. The best-known Pakistani supporter, all flag-waving and slogan-shouting in Sharjah for years, became a popular guest in India during the last series. So much so that he even appeared on television to lend his support to the Indian captain who was under fire for not performing. A decade ago that would have been impossible to contemplate.

It is but natural that you will get the traditional protestors. Like the Shiv Sena, who dig up pitches because they are expected to. You can play each other every day of the year without reducing the Sena's hatred or their energy for digging up pitches.

The teams have played often enough to shake off the political and diplomatic baggage they carried and are now just two sides taking each other on in a game of cricket. Cricket is about cricket and nothing else. Perhaps playing each other regularly was a necessary evil that helped resolve the problem of irreconcilable otherness that is at the bottom of all conflict.

It may not have been a planned move; perhaps the compulsions of television and the temptations of making money before the curtain came down again were the driving force. Whatever the reason, we have reached a stage where an India-Pakistan series is one like any other.

Having got this far, it would be foolish to overdo it and reduce the exercise to a chore. This is what Shaharyar is worried about. This is what Sharad Pawar ought to be worrying about. Why fix something if it ain't broke? Especially if in the act of fixing there is a possibility of breaking. Already in the last series in Pakistan there were large swathes of empty space at the stadiums; likewise in India. People have begun to keep away. Of course that might not worry the authorities because cricket is played for television. But what if people begin to blanch at the prospect of watching another India-Pakistan game, even on TV?

A little otherness is a good thing, for marriages and cricket teams.