In Pakistan: Reflections off the field

I'm in Peshawar for the start of the one-day matches and I'm really starting to question the intelligence of what I'm doing. I'm not sure if people feel this way on long tours of duty, but it's a feeling that's creeped in innocuously over the past few days, and then just hit me smack in the face. I'm in a foreign country, in a land of hustle and bustle, of political and ideological lines so sharp you have to take sides just to survive, and where each language is so rich in itself, it could exist independently of Pakistan. And yet, I'm here covering cricket. It's the gentleman's game, of course but it's also like covering a football in the middle of Somalia... ok, that's a stretched out comparison, but what I'm saying is that it's a little wierd that I'm reporting on something that's an obsession with some many millions of people, while what they need to be made aware of will never see the light of the day, at least for the time being. But I guess, it's my duty to report on the cricket and that is what I shall do. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the sport, I love it as a matter of fact, but just having to work on it when you there's stories out there that have the potential to affect people and inform people far better is something that I cannot ignore. I guess, it's not my job to worry about what goes on outside the cricketing arena as much as one can't worry about how much water gets below the surface and to the roots of a oak tree...
I guess we each have our purposes... mine so far has been to cover the cricket as long as the Indian cricket team is present in Pakistan. So, from Peshawar, traversing across the country, through Islamabad, then Lahore, then Multan, and then Karachi makes for interesting thought. The real challenge here is how to use cricket and use that as a medium to get the viewers in India and pretty much anyone who watches my channel, to appreciate the beauty, the spirit, the madness, the defiance, the religiousness of this land.
Cricket is a sport that's played with a mixture of patience, physicality and skill unlike most sports... No other sport can be so physical and last over so many hours, and sometimes days. I guess most people ignore the fact that playing test cricket needs you to be involved with the game all the time, mentally, physically and if you ask the Indian coach, philosophically through all the five days and then there's always prep time and cooling off time... so, it's a full time job really. It's glamourous but it's demanding as hell. Sort of like what we do, except more high profile. It's the involvement that's the ambassador, the passion, the eagerness to perform. People see it and realise both sides want it just as bad, but the spirit never wavers. And I guess, that way in a sense, Indo-Pak cricket has done a lot of work for the development of relations. Not at any governmental level but by getting people to realise that it's all the same. This land or that... I don't think there's one journalist on this tour who believes, we're a divided nation, that we're not a people meant to be undivided. It's inevitable that on the cricket field, when you take one look and think, what could a combined team of these twenty two might have achieved that Australia hasn't today or the Windies did in the 60's. It's a wishful thinking that I know political and economic reality will never let come to pass, but still, I can dream now, can't I.