Everyone on the television agrees: seeing an England team give succour to a repressive regime by playing prestigious fixtures on its soil is deeply troubling – or ‘problematic’ to use the latest horrible buzz word. A society that represses gay people and women and whose ruling class routinely engages in corruption to further its own interests should not be ‘normalised’ via world-class international sport, runs the argument.
But all these conditions apply in Pakistan just as they do in Qatar. Yet has anyone heard a squeak of broadcast media complaint about the England cricket team’s tour of that country?
Far from agonising about whether to take a knee, wear a rainbow armband, boycott the country altogether or engage in some other novel protest, our cricketers were pictured this weekend happily ambling through Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Rawalpindi to start their first tour of Pakistan since 2005. The official England Cricket twitter feed proudly shared the footage, declaring: ‘Touchdown in Pakistan for our men’s test squad!’
To have England arriving for a test series is a huge coup for the Pakistani government (pun intended)
Why the double standard? Of course, it could fairly be argued that a cricket test series is nothing like the football World Cup in terms of its global impact and reach.
But in Pakistan cricket is a sporting religion and the recent scarcity of international touring teams – largely due to the threat of Islamist terror attacks – has been deeply felt.
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