“All forms of people-to-people contact, including sports, are important and should be pursued, but never at the cost of our main focus, which is terrorism emanating from Pakistan,” said Vivek Katju, a retired diplomat who has served in Pakistan and was India's ambassador in Afghanistan.
Across the border, Pakistani analysts feel that while the resumption of sporting contact between the two neighbors is welcome, the two sides can make real progress only when they succeed in resolving their long-standing disputes.
Rasool Bakhsh Rais, a professor of political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, said sports could be a “major avenue through which hostilities between the two nations could be set aside.”
The expectations riding on cricket players are huge before any match, but especially when they play against their great rivals. So great are the pressures, a sports psychologist is accompanying the Pakistani team during its stint in India, Pakistani cricket officials said.
Security has been tightened at Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium, where Tuesday's match is to be played, with hundreds of paramilitary troops and local police deployed at the gates to the stadium.
