ABSTRACT
India’s cricket tour of Pakistan in early 2004 evoked a plethora of responses in Indian public life. From learned to laity people began to consider cricket as a means to various ends: a political instrument to generate electoral confidence, a diplomatic ploy to accelerate peace process, an economic means to ameliorate the neighbour’s pecuniary distress, a cultural arena to assert cricketing muscle, an emotional tool to soothe traditional enmity, and so on. More importantly, when it comes to India’s cricketing relations with Pakistan, the apparent popular perception of an ever-rising enmity stands in striking contrast to the friendly ties between the two cricket boards at international level while the game still remains one major and viable confidence-building arena in the long-term process of normalization of diplomatic relations between the two neighbouring states. This essay seeks to explore, understand and analyze such varied representations of the tour as evident in popular media in the wider context of domestic political debates, sub-continental diplomatic relations and purely cricketing arch-rivalry.
