How they took away the spirit of my game

For a genuine cricket romantic, the toxic atmosphere in an India-Pakistan match has robbed the sport of its purity

- Rajdeep Sardesai

“War Minus the Shooting" is the rather prescient title of a fine book on the 1996 cricket World Cup by an American journalist, Mike Marqusee. Twenty seven years later, India-Pakistan cricket is more "war-like" than ever before. At least in 1996, three sub-continental nations-India, Pakistan, and eventual surprise winners, Sri Lanka-jointly hosted the World Cup; today that's an unthinkable prospect. Instead, the build-up to the India-Pakistan cricket match is tied into ever-escalating competitive jingoism on both sides of the border.

That the marquee match-up of the World Cup is being held in Ahmedabad is a sign of the times. This is a city whose politics has been dominated by the sangh parivar over the last three decades, where Hindu-Muslim riots in 2002 deeply scarred and divided communities, where religious identity has created visible "borders" within a metropolis. Ahmedabad has the biggest cricket stadium in the world named after Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, a leader who has come to symbolise muscular Hindutva nationalism. In the worldview of many strident Hindutva nationalists, Pakistan is the arch "enemy country", one that must be isolated and defeated at all costs.