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Cricket is a craze among India’s 1.3 billion people and no game takes the form of a war of sorts than when India plays its foe, Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan are passionate cricket nations and their rivalry is touted as one of the greatest sports rivalries in the world. However, their cricket matches are interlaid with political meaning. The Modi government, which has chosen the path of hyper nationalism (vis-à-vis Pakistan) and has changed the narrative from secularism to terrorism. Both India and Pakistan are perpetually in a state of undeclared war except for the very rare occasion when they did seriously try to improve relations during the governments of Vajpayee and Dr.Manmohan Singh. The diplomacy did not end the fierce cricket rivalry. Cricket is the only “international” game in which both countries are among the top 20. Both India and Pakistan are also rivals in Hockey but since their dominance over the game was long over, it doesn’t elicit the emotions it did till the seventies. Today, India is ranked second in ICC T20 ahead of fourth placed Pakistan in a table that is led by England. In the One Day International (ODI) India is ranked fourth, ahead of sixth-ranked Pakistan and behind leaders New Zealand.Indian cricket has been rising to dizzying heights especially with the success of the Indian IPL. Without mentioning cricket, Indian sports would be incomplete. It is not just a sport in India, but a part of the national culture and tradition. The craze for cricket is negative. Even Sunil Chetri, the captain of the Indian football team had to request Indians to come to watch their match against Kenya. Chetri was reacting to the low turnout at international football tournaments where India was among the competitors. Football is more widespread in India but it has not received the kind of financial support like IPL. Whenever the victorious Indian Cricket team members arrive, they are greeted like heroes and treated no less than Bollywood celebrities. Indian cricketers are overrated by TV commentators and whether this has to do with TPR is a matter of debate. Their performances are marked by inconsistencies, regularly swinging from highs to lows. India watched in shock and disbelief when The Men in Blue faced a humiliating loss to arch-rivals Pakistan by a margin of 10 wickets. This was the first time that Pakistan won a T20I fixture by 10 wickets and India lost a T20I by 10 wickets. This was also the first time that Pakistan managed to beat India in a World Cup match of the T20 World Cup history. Pakistan has never beaten India in ODI or T20 matches. For both India and Pakistan victory against each, means more than winning any tournament. India are on the brink of getting knocked out of the ICC T20 World Cup after suffering a second humiliating 8-wicket defeat against New Zealand in their Super 12 Group 2 match in Dubai on October 31. These two humiliating defeats have exposed Indian cricket to the bone. The IPL has rocketed Indian cricket beyond the financial realms of other nations but it has also made Indian cricketers like mercenaries for money. Probably too much cricket has undone the Men In Blue who should now be feeling terribly very blue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cricket-crazy nation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}