These dangerous times we live in

Terror, and the game we love

Amit Varma

This piece was first published in the June 2002 issue of Wisden Asia Cricket magazine.

Sport and terrorism first came together in the Munich Olympics of 1972, when 11 Israeli athletes were first kidnapped, then killed, by a Palistinean terrorist group called Black September. The world was stunned, and the Olympic movement seemed in jeopardy. Sport unites people and generates goodwill; terrorism is the antithesis of that, and sport seemed, at that time, a logical target. But thankfully, that was just a one-off incident, and sport and terrorism went their separate ways after that.

Cricket has never had much to worry about from terrorism. Australia refused to play in Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup, New Zealand called off a tour in Sri Lanka in 1987 after a bomb-blast killed 100 people, and West Indies opted not to go to Pakistan earlier this year, but all of those were more out of concern about being in a dangerous environment rather than being the targets.

The recent explosion in Karachi, which caused New Zealand's tour to be called off, fell in a similar category, as the New Zealand players so close to the blast were never the intended victims. And yet, in that moment when Stephen Fleming saw "a guy with a missing limb walking around," making "horrific" noises, cricket came face to face with a reality it might have to face up to very soon.

Terrorism will mean more to cricket in coming years than just cancelled tours and neutral venues. So far, cricket – and sport, in fact – has only been peripherally and incidentally affected by terrorism. Why should that change now? To understand that, we need to look at the fundamental nature of terrorism, and how it is evolving.

The world has typically seen two kinds of terrorist activity so far: high-end and low-end. High-end activity focussed on High-Impact Tough Targets (HITT) like passenger aircraft (a staple terrorist target) or, in recent times, symbolic targets like the WTC and the Pentagon. Politicians who are part of the regime the terrorists are opposing are also part of this category; very difficult to get to because of the level of security involved. HITT attacks are infrequent but have a massive impact, not just in terms of casualties, but also for psychological impact.

Low-end activity focusses on Low-Impact Soft Targets (LIST), where terrorists attack targets that are very easy to get to and have little or no security around them. Recent Palistinean attacks in Israel have focussed on LISTs, with attacks by suicide bombers in cafes, discos, outside synogogues. In times where people are so inured to violence as we are, one such attack has little impact, and thus, LIST attacks are typically, as in Israel and Kashmir, very frequent, with the impact on the people it aims to affect being attritional.

In a post-September-11 age of increased security, HITT attacks are getting more and more difficult to conjure up. And with so much violence all around us, people are getting more and more desensitised to LIST attacks. It will not be long – in fact, it is a logical step forward – before terrorism moves its focus on a new kind of target entirely, which is easy to get to, and can make a nation quiver: High-Impact Soft Strikes (HISS). These don't exist merely in theory – they exist in sport.

And in films, for that matter. Think about it; 30 deaths in Kashmir are just another statistic we look at in the morning newspaper before moving to the sports page. But if something was to happen to your favourite cricketer – or filmstar, also a prime candidate for a HISS – it would devastate a nation. More than a attack on parliament, more than… anything. The top sportsmen and filmstars in India hardly have any security to speak of; what they do have might help them stave away persistent autograph hunters, but certainly not suicide bombers, or men with bombs and guns.

After the attack on the American Embassy in Calcutta, security was temporarily stepped up around Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar because they were found to be kidnap-targets of Aftab Ansari, the mastermind of the attacks. (There was reason to believe that Omar Sheikh, later arrested for Daniel Pearl's kidnapping and murder, was one of Ansari's co-plotters). And recently, the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) correctly expressed reservations about security for the Indian players in England, where pitch invasions are common. This is not a matter to be taken lightly where, as in the case of the WTC attacks, we start taking preventive measures after the unthinkable has already happened. The BCCI, the police (wherever relevant), the men in charge of security in concerned cities and venues, and the sportsmen themselves must start taking preventive measures.

Many of us in the media like to complain about the barriers that the top sportsmen of today build up around themselves. For their sake, for the sake of the sport, and for our sake too, we must hope that those barriers grow bigger, and stronger.

© Wisden Asia Cricket