Shahnawaz Alam for BeyondHeadlines
The current debate erupted from a young talented cricketer Parvez Rasool, not getting placed in playing eleven in the last one day international match against Zimbabwe has ignited political debates. However, this is not the first time a player selected in national ODI cricket team could not get a chance to play a single match in the whole series.
Many young talented cricketers in past have gone through this testing phase and that is phenomenal. But, Indian politicians never let go any chance to maximize their political ambitions, whether it is sports, religion, faith, region, race, education system or anything for that matter.
However, Rasool’s saga is slightly different given his ethnicity and belonging to the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Undeniably he earned his inclusion in Indian team on the grounds of his consistent outstanding performance in IPL followed by domestic Ranji Tournament
There can be no better situation to give chances to young players especially when the team has already taken an unprecedented lead of 4-0 in a five match series. But, the acting captain Virat Kohli decided it was not the right condition to debut Rasool in the last match. I deliberately don’t want to indulge into the debate that what could have been the ideal condition for a team to give chances to young cricketers.
It certainly earmarked a kind of symbolism in itself when a cricketer from Kashmir was included in Indian side. The same Kashmir which is always under the scanner of doubts due to the conflicting geo-political conditions. Inevitably, it is clear that Jammu & Kashmir is the most disconnected state from the mainstream Indian polity due to many reasons. In these circumstances the younger generation is setting some exuberant examples in different auras of academia sports and other professionalism, especially the IAS topper coming from Kashmir.
However, I don’t believe including Rasool in playing eleven in last match against Zimbabwe would have impacted much the results. Even if we take a hypothetical situation of India loosing the last match against Zimbabwe with Rasool’s inclusion in playing eleven, which had the least possibility observing the outstanding performance of the team. This would have not impacted the results anyways since Indian team had already registered an unprecedented victory. But a given chance for Rasool to play the last match would have certainly set a symbolic example, not only in Indian cricket history but, also a sense of belonging among the aspiring young Kashmiri generation.
Separatist leaders in Kashmir don’t give away any chances to bash Indian state, but this time its chief minister Omar Abdullah expressing his dissent. Observers believe that Mr. Omar Abdullah’s reaction was not desirable and unnecessary. Observers also contemplate as Omar was trying to wreak a political indignation among the Kashmiri youth by posing irresponsible comments whereas some other believes his concern was genuine especially with regard to the institutional biases surfaced throughout the country against Kashmiri’s and other marginalized and weaker section of the Indian society.
(The author is media student and can be contacted on shahnawazkhan.jmi@gmail.com)
