Sourav Ganguly agrees with Gambhir on cutting cricketing ties with Pakistan

Sourav Ganguly has resonated the sentiment shown by Indian opening batsman Gautam Gambhir stating that he would not play Pakistan in an ODI match until the current political conflict was resolved. Earlier this week, Gambhir was on the receiving end of a considerable amount of flak following his comments made on social media handle twitter.

Sourav Ganguly, who had Gambhir in the side when he was skipper of the Indian team said that the northern neighbors were being unreasonable in their cross-border conflicts.

“It’s completely acceptable that if you keep fighting and killing our soldiers at the border you cannot just keep playing bilateral series,” said Ganguly, who added that taking such steps at ICC events would be difficult.

“It’s a very sensitive issue and we will get opinions from all quarters, as Gambhir has expressed. Anurag (Thakur) has a different stance, a new BCCI president two or three years down the line might have a different stance but it is not in the BCCI’s control to stop the ICC from hosting an India-Pakistan match in their events,” the CAB president added.

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“I respect Gambhir’s sentiments but the question is will he walk out of an India-Pakistan Champions Trophy match if he is selected in the team next year? no, he won’t. Did he stop playing against Pakistan after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks? no, he did not. Will India not play Pakistan in hockey? they will. But that doesn’t make the hockey team any less nationalistic or patriotic than Gambhir.

Boria Majumdar, a cricket historian also went on to back Gambhir on the same. “The point is, this is a governmental issue and we need a pronounced stand on this. Multi-nation, bilateral nothing. As far as I’m concerned this is absolute hypocrisy because Gambhir is the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, a team where Wasim Akram is the bowling coach and mentor. The government has to decide on this and not leave it on the sports bodies and pass the buck like Vijay Goel did today,” Boria said.

“In 1980 the United States did not participate in the Moscow Olympics, the biggest sporting event in the world, because of its cold war with Russia. Not only did the USA not go to Russia, they sent their
ambassadors to 60 countries to campaign with those countries so that they don’t go for the Moscow Games. So that is how seriously a country takes its sporting ties. Will India wake up to it remains to be seen.”

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