“You bowl very well, please accept this cricket bat as a gift from me.” You must remember when Virat Kohli gave a bat to Mohammad Amir in 2016. And if you’ve forgotten that, then surely you recall Kohli and Mohammad Rizwan’s warm embrace after a match in 2021. In the past, whatever the state of Pakistan–India relations might have been, it never affected the cricketers on the field. But now things have reached a point where Indian cricketers have locked their dressing room doors just to avoid shaking hands with Pakistani players. After their defeat in the war, the Indians are frustrated, and they’re venting that anger on the cricket field. Otherwise, they wouldn’t act so foolishly. I still give cricketers a little margin—perhaps the poison of hatred hasn’t completely seeped into their conscience yet—but they remain under the influence of their board and government. After the captains’ press conferences, when Surya Kumar Yadav was criticized for shaking hands with Mohsin Naqvi...