Two sides do not make a triangle

South Africa have pulled out of the rain tournament following the bomb blast in Colombo a couple of days ago.

It is the right thing to do. As a cricket fan, I'm obviously sad. As a blogger, I'm probably happy that I don't need to write about some very meaningless games.

But human lives are far more important, more important than cricket. All this talk on the lines of "Blasts and terrorism are part of daily life. We ought not to be cowed down. The terrorists should not win. They won't target cricketers anyway" is just plain bull excreta. Even if blasts and terrorism are an everyday event, that does not mean cricketers, and indeed spectators, ought to invite trouble by playing games. The terrorists may not target cricketers explicitly. What if they hit the security folks who had the responsibility of guarding the cricketers? What if their aim missed and hit the cricket players' bus instead?

There was a nice dosage of double standards last year when Australia played on in England after the bomb blasts in London even as the ECB was trying to get Karachi off the agenda for the England team's tour of Pakistan late last year.

Now, it seems like India & Sri Lanka will play a few one-dayers to make up for the absence of South Africa.

All this reminds me of Sohrab Modi's immortal dialogue in Bimal Roy's 'Yahudi': "Tumhara khoon khoon aur hamara khoon paani?" That translates to "Is your blood blood and ours water?"

Labels: security, terrorism