Cricket is not War - Let's Just Keep Them Apart

Not for the first time, I hope I am not alone. Surely to whatever God you believe in, I can’t be alone, in my concern at how quickly the row over the allegations of ball-tampering in the fourth test match between England and Pakistan has somehow been linked to the war on terror. Whether you are English, Pakistani, Muslim or Christian, we can surely all agree that cricket is just a game. I am of course aware that in the Indian sub-continent, the game has sometimes fallen victim to the rows over India’s control of Kashmir. But it isn’t the cricket that’s responsible for that, it’s the dispute over Kashmir. To suggest as Simon Barnes seems to do in today’s Times that Darrell Hair should have taken account of the willingness of a few Muslims to use terror to achieve their aims in his adjudication of a cricket match is as nonsensical as much of the analysis of the affair thus far.