India’s Minister of External Affairs Dr. S. Jaishankar used a cricket analogy to explain India’s foreign policy.
Mr Jaishankar was talking at the release of the autobiography “Fearless” of India’s former cricketer Mohinder Amarnath. Amarnath was part of the Indian team which won the 1983 World Cup. He was the ‘Player of the Match’ in both semi-final and final of the tournament.
He used a cricket example to explain the progression of India’s foreign policy, especially with Pakistan.
Jaishankar said, “You said you played them better because, from the traditional side-on position, you now move to an open-chested position. I couldn’t have found a better description for a Pakistan policy that time”.
He pointed out many key lessons from the former cricketer’s autobiography which are similar to India’s foreign policy. The Indian Minister talked about former West Indian captain Clive Lloyd and how he “earned respect”.
He said, “The first takeaway is that the world is intensely competitive, but respect is earned. So the same Clive Lloyd in 1976, who did not spare any of you from body line bowling, was also the fielding captain who was generous enough to declare that pitch unfit in 1983. And that, in many ways, was respect earned”.
S Jaishankar: “1983 Cricket World Cup fundamentally changed India’s role in world cricket”
Dr. Jaishankar further talked about India’s 1983 World Cup triumph and how it changed Indian cricket. India’s role in world cricket changed fundamentally he highlighted.
“I think nobody has any doubt that 1983 was the inflection point. It was not just the inflection point, but the man of the match of the inflection point. Pakistan won it at one point and Sri Lanka won it at one point.
But nowhere else was it as big an inflection point as it was in the history of cricket. Because, if you look at India’s role in world cricket after 1983, it fundamentally changed”.
