WHY IT'S JUST NOT CRICKET ANY MORE

WHEN India plays cricket with Pakistan, it has to be War Minus the Shooting, as Mike Marqusee put it in his book of that title.

- ANAND VASU

The only surprising thing is that it still manages to surprise us. When a batsman marks a half-century by pointing towards an imagined enemy, mimicking the firing of a machine gun, as Sahibzada Farhan did, it thrills before it shocks. When Haris Rauf mimes an airplane falling out of the sky, it titillates before it disgusts.

By all accounts, the sports-watching world wanted India and Pakistan to play each other, as evidenced by the feeble response to the boycott calls. And yet, when it happened, there was a sense of being underwhelmed. Not by the lack of asporting contest, but by the emptiness it left viewers feeling after they had invested so much in it.

To be sure, Pakistan are not the team they once were. The aura of Imran Khan and his cornered tigers may never be replicated, but this is not the only reason why the rivalry has fizzled out. When you deny sport its reason for existence—humans being playful, energetic and alive—by burdening it with a weight it is not designed to carry, you do not give it a chance to touch you.