Underthinking Politics and Sport

So last night I stayed up and watched the 2nd Semi-final in the Cricket world cup, between arch-rivals India and Pakistan. Having stayed up to watch the 1st semi the night before and going to work both days, I have had about 8 hours sleep in the last 3 days.

This will be me, in a couple of hours

Now this term rivals and enemies is bandied about a lot during sports. I.e the Australian NZ rivalry in everything. But for Pakistan and India it runs deeper than just a standard sibling rivalry that we have with Big Brother Australia.

Stupid Australia, always making us wear stupid hats, and poking us in the eyes.

For those of you unaware, they used to be one country, until roughly 1933, when the Muslims living in India decided they wanted a piece of land to call their own. Specifically the Mulsims living in the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind, and BaluchisTAN regions, hence their snazzy name, the I was added to make pronunciation easier. But the problem is that the India's weren't quite ready to give up the Kashmir.

And I can understand why, it is a beautiful fabric

Kidding, it is Beautiful, no wonder they both want it.

 So it is more like a sibling rivalry between separated conjoined twins when they couldn't decide who would get the Kidney.

"Seriously, I get the Kidney!"

 And its not like they have rudimentary sticks and arrows to fight each other with over this region, both countries are Nuclear powers, so it is one of the worlds powder kegs. So tread carefully.

Although their Uniforms, make you wonder if they are bluffing regarding the nuclear weapons

 So they say you shouldn't mix sport and politics but it seems to be wonderful thing, Nelson Mandela united a country by poisoning a rival sporting nation,

"No one suspects a thing"

 the German and Allied soldiers skivvied off to play football when they were meant to be shooting each other

"Oi you are meant to be shooting each other, what are you doing?"

The Soviets juiced up all their citizens to win Olympics and prove their superiority, because that was cheaper than trying to get to the moon.

Turning Women into men, was easier and cheaper than getting to the moon.

So jovially the other day someone suggested the Indians and Pakistanis put the Kashmir on the line in last nights game, and that would end the dispute. That was a joke but then I got thinking, countries have these emotionally charge series over these meaningless trophies.

Seriously I could buy one of those for like $500

Why not have a series every four years between Pakistan and India, where the winner gets the Kashmir region for those 4 years, I mean its not like they have stability at the moment with all the fighting. And most countries have elections ever 4 years so change of administration wouldn't be that big a deal.
That would amp up the pressure on the Series, and make it the biggest deal in world cricket.

"I won these burnt stumps"

"We just won 186,000 sq km of beautiful mountain region"

"Damn"

 Note the land area I gave excludes the section of the Kashmir that the Chinese lay claim to, so maybe once we get China up to sped on Cricket, then a tri-series could be in order.

Don't worry they are working on it

But until then we just work with the Pakistani- Indian parts, they seem to be the bitterest rivals, the only other one I could think of that comes close is Serbia vs Croatia, especially in Basketball were they used to be World Champions competing together as Yugoslavia. If you are looking for a good watch, get hold of Once Brothers a documentary presented by Vlade Divacs about the tearing apart of friendships within the Yugoslavian Basketball team. Can you think of any other rivalry that run this deep?