Originally chosen to be one of the hosts, Pakistan lost its chance after the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in 2009. Sri Lanka had gone there to replace India which had refused to tour Pakistan after the Mumbai massacres of November, 2008. But the rude shock which Sri Lanka received ended all hopes of the “epicentre of terrorism” staging international sporting events in the foreseeable future. Since then, Pakistan has been playing its “home series” in England or in West Asia.

It will be a mortifying experience for the Pakistanis to see the telecasts of the world cup matches being held before cheering crowds in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The sight will be even more disheartening when Pakistan plays its games. Even more than the Indo-US nuclear deal and American support for a permanent seat for India in the UN security council, the fact that Pakistan has been pointedly kept out as a venue for the cricket extravaganza will drive home to the powers-that-be in Pakistan their grievous error of using terror as a part of a “diplomatic” warfare against India.

Yet, it is now virtually impossible for Pakistan to climb out of the hole which it has dug for itself. That it may even be nurturing some kind of a death wish in this respect is evident from the Wikileaks exposure that the US ambassador in Islamabad, Anne Patterson, has told Washington that no amount of aid will persuade the Pakistan army to break its links with the terrorist groups. Although Ashfaq Kayani and Co. must be aware that the terrorists may cause greater damage to Pakistan than to India in the long run, their tunnel vision seems to preclude the possibility of changing course.

A major reason why the Pakistan army cannot be made to rethink its strategy is that it is the master of all it surveys in a country which is democratic only in name. Pakistan’s feckless politicians are helpless before it. They have no option but to second guess its intent and act accordingly for, otherwise, they run the risk of being toppled in a coup. The Wikileaks revelation that Nawaz Sharif’s brother, Shabbaz Sharif, tipped off the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the fountainhead of Lashkar-e-Toiba, about the impending UN ban to enable it to clear out its bank accounts is also an indication that it is not the army and the ISI alone which are hand-in-glove with the terrorists.

Given the haplessness of the politicians and their clandestine links with the terrorists, a modicum of hope can be reposed in the judiciary, which seems to have recovered some of its poise after the ignominious days of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s judicial murder and the attack on the court building by Nawaz Sharif’s goons. The media, too, as testified by Noam Chomsky, is now seemingly more or less a free agent. It is the latter which may be able to reflect the anger and humiliation which the general public will undoubtedly feel when it sees the world cup being staged in all the neighbouring countries but not in Pakistan.

It might not have mattered much if the games were not cricket. But in view of the enormous popularity of cricket in the region, the sense of remorse cannot but be very high. As it is, Pakistan’s reputation has taken a blow from the betting scandals in which several senior players, including former captain Salman Butt and pace bowlers, Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Ameer, have been implicated. It will not be easy, therefore, for it to field its best team. Besides, the players will require considerable mental stamina to ignore the shadow of secret deals with bookies hanging over them.

To compound Pakistan’s misery, India looks set for an easy run and perhaps even win the cup, as Imran Khan and others have predicted. If Pakistan had been able to field all its players, including Butt, Asif and Ameer, who are among the best in the world, it could have given Mohinder Singh Dhoni and Co. a run for their money. But now, it is almost a foregone conclusion that Dhoni will hold the cup aloft on the day of the final in Mumbai.

The sight will be cheered by all cricket fans, including the viewers in Pakistan. But it is the popular disenchantment in Pakistan over its exclusion, if articulated strongly by the media, which may cause some unease in the Rawalpindi headquarters of the army. No army, even in a virtual military dictatorship, can summarily brush aside popular sentiment. Therein lies a faint hope for India. (IPA Service)