When off-field India vs Pakistan cricket rivalry took an ugly turn

The ad spoofs a video with an Indian fan talking like the captive pilot Abhinandan Varthaman

Who: No one can build a frenzy around cricketing contests between India and Pakistan like the media can. More specifically, advertisements. Ahead of the Indo-Pak clash in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup on Sunday, an ad on Jazz TV, a Pakistani mobile television app, mocked Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman who was held captive and released after a tense aerial duel earlier this year. The ad spoofs a video that was released by the Pakistani military, with an Indian fan dressed in blue making tight-lipped responses like the captive pilot when asked about the cricket team’s composition and strategy.

Where: The aerial fight, triggered in response to the terror attack that killed jawans in Kashmir earlier this year, has now shifted to the airwaves. Broadcaster Star Sports featured an ad — a continuation of its “Mauka Mauka” campaign that it ran to promote the last edition of the World Cup in 2015 — that played on the Father’s Day theme to depict fans from Bangladesh and Pakistan as mere children before the father figure of the Indian supporter. Father’s Day will coincide with the day of the India-Pakistan contest. In 2015, Star Sports featured an ad that showed a Pakistani fan in Karachi preparing since 1992 (the first World Cup in which the two rivals locked horns) to burst his box of crackers. However, over five attempts he has got married and had a child but the crackers have gathered cobwebs, as his team always failed to win.

What: The Jazz TV ad was slammed on social media for making light of serious discord. Secondly, the lookalike of Varthaman (who is from Tamil Nadu) sported a fake tan so the ad was criticised for being racist as well. Industrialist Harsh Goenka tweeted condemning Pakistan for mocking a national hero and sought “retaliation”. Indian tennis star Sania Mirza, who is married to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik, accused both sides of airing “cringeworthy ads” and advised against hyping the upcoming match with “rubbish”.

How: Television ads have also got personal and targeted cricketers. In 2015, a Bangladeshi cola ad warned that the Indian team would be welcomed with a bamboo cane ahead of a tour. Besides offensive ads on TV, a newspaper in Bangladesh published an ad that showed Indian cricketers with half-shaved heads. The ads are a reflection of the shifting balance among the teams. India is the centre of the cricketing world, the superpower and “big daddy” in terms of sheer political and financial muscle compared to any other Asian team. On the other hand, who or what the ads pick on says much about the relations between the nations. It is, therefore, not surprising to see an ill-advised ad such as the Jazz TV one, in the context of rising diplomatic tensions between India and Pakistan. It may be a mere footnote in the bigger battle the neighbours wage daily. Unlike earlier, India-Pakistan matches are unthinkable except in ICC tournaments. It is a far cry from the mellow days when superstar Mahendra Singh Dhoni burst onto the scene and earned endorsement from none other than Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf during India’s historic tour of the country in 2006.