'Why Are You Dancing For Pakistan?' And Other Questions To BCCI

🏏 5 Questions To BCCI

1. Why was an opening ceremony or music and dance performances not held before the first match of the World Cup? 

–Is the India-Pakistan game bigger than the tournament? 

2. In case the reason for not having an opening ceremony before the first game, England vs New Zealand, was that it would have been too hot in the afternoon in Ahmedabad, what is different for the Pakistan game?

It’s in Ahmedabad, and the Bollywood gala is scheduled to start sometime around 12:30 in the afternoon. 

3. If an opening ceremony was supposed to be reserved for an India game, why not have it before the first game of India? The Pakistan match would be India’s third game and the tenth day of the tournament. 

4. Let’s say the World Cup was held in Australia and India-Pakistan played the first game of the tournament. However, an opening ceremony or something akin to it was only held on the tenth day when Australia played England.

Would people not be justified in attributing racist motives to the Australian board in that case? If yes, where does the present decision leave the BCCI

5. At a time when India has successfully de-hyphenated itself from Pakistan in international fora, why is the Pakistan game, and only the Pakistan game being hyped in this manner? Play it as another World Cup match and move on. Why are you dancing for Pakistan? 

My colleagues, Tushar Gupta and Karan Kamble, discuss these and other related questions in this sharp podcast here. Give it a listen. 

See you tomorrow,

Arush Tandon

Meet Venu Gopal Narayanan

A regular contributor to Swarajya, Venu represents something very unique about the nature of our media platform.

•  An entrepreneur in high stakes industries, he’s not an armchair journalist.

• His analysis of India’s electoral landscape, Kerala politics and energy related geo-political matters is among the best you’ll find on the internet.

• Our thinking: modern media platforms cannot just be about journalists.

• We’ve got to find insights and news from everywhere - the monopoly of journalists is gone.

Venu and people like him will play a big role in our flagship print magazine.

If you like what we do, please consider subscribing by clicking here and getting the annual print subscription for Rs 2400 (which is Rs 200/month) – you’ll get both print and digital access for the next 12 months.