Let me start with a question. What would you prefer, play the game and have fun or play the game and risk the sanctity of the concept of a cricket match. Which one you will chose will reflect on you and your character. Choosing not to play a match of cricket at the risk of demeaning cricket will suggest that you value things more than your own personal interests and abstract concepts make sense. But sometimes we have to play cricket even when the essence of the game might be at a risk, only for the larger interest of cricket.
Freiburg Nomads faced this conundrum when Pakistan Freiburg team approached us for a 'friendly' fixture.We have played Pak Freiburg team before, mostly even without asking the games were friendly i.e. they finished on very friendly note. So this comes as a surprise that we have to officially term the upcoming match as a 'friendly'.
Two seasons ago there was a massive incident on the field between our then captain Sikandar and the opposition captain Mansoor, which at first led to abandoning of the match midway and then a sequence of arguments which precipitated in the opposition captain making some very serious and offensive comments about a Country and a religion, in addition to the scene it created on the field. It was so embarrassing and humiliating to be a part of that group of players who created such a mess and presented cricket as a game which people from the Indian Subcontinent use to express their personal frustration. In my opinion cricket is not the medium for a display of frustrations, it is a medium to express yourself, your skills and your self-control.
From then on FNCC have played the Pak. Freiburg only once, just because both teams were playing in the BWCV league. In some sense it was good that the two teams did not play each other. Because this meant that many personal relationships between the players of the two teams remained largely unaffected.
When we play in a country where Cricket is not a well known sport, where it is seen as a modified form of baseball, where it is impossible to explain why we wear whites, why one cricket game must last for a day at least, it is our first and foremost responsibility to present the game in its most clean and pious form, not dented by personal problems. With Pak. Freiburg team there is always a small probability that at some point in the course of the game there will incidents that are not 'cricket'. In last seasons we have not allowed such deformed cricket by not playing it. But, not playing cricket is also not 'cricket'.
Cricket must be played and it must be played properly. Now that the two teams have once again agreed to play each other, it is a huge responsibility that we allow proper cricket to happen while playing cricket.
Perhaps FNCC needs to be more responsible because we are known for our clean cricket. Also because the reformed FNCC team looks beyond the transients of winning or losing. Also because half of the current FNCC team is not even aware of the history between the Pak. Freiburg and FNCC, and it can only be good for the game. As cricketers we have to be aware of the history and traditions of the game and not of personal problem which were presented on the cricket field.
This is my request, personally and also as the chairman of the FNCC, to all the players from both teams that lets not play for winning or losing or settling scores but to display what cricket is in its true sense. I think only that kind of cricket can be called 'cricket'.
Good luck to both the teams.
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