While everyone in the States was preoccupied with the President’s SOTU speech, Defense Secretary Robert Gates dropped a shocker in New Delhi that ended up falling by the way side.

To a question, Gates said that it would “not be unreasonable to assume that India’s patience will be limited” if there is a repeat of 26/11. ”After the Mumbai attacks, India had responded with great restraint and statesmanship. But if attacked again, the response is a question. I leave this question to the Indian government,” Gates said.

As we all know, the post 9/11 era saw America redefine its relationship with Pakistan in the hopes that the strategically vital nation would help root out terrorists hiding in the mountainous tribal region in the Northwest. Of course Pakistan has been critical in America’s war efforts, regularly launching offensives into Al-Qaeda safe-havens and gathering intelligence, but the relationship has gone sour as of late. Increasing factionalism in the Pakistani government has made Asif Al-Zadari’s government ineffectual, and government audits have found that the millions of American dollars propping up the economy have done little to increase access to basic humanitarian needs. Further, constant unmanned drone attacks in the Northwest have led to upsurge in Anti-Americanism throughout Pakistan, making cooperation more politically threatening than ever.

Gates’ latest statement, which in essence seemed to give implicit American support to Indian retaliatory action, marks an important shift. But is there more to Gates’ statement than just hard-headed rhetoric? Would India really launch tactical strikes in Pakistan, or is the US just trying to use the threat of Indian hard-power as a “big stick” with which to urge Pakistan to get it’s business in order? It’s much too early to answer this question, but most experts would agree that relations between India and Pakistan are the worst they’ve been in twenty years. Read about it in most news sources and you will come across the usual suspects– political fallout from the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, accusations of border incursions on both sides, and frustration among Indians over the Pakistani’s government apparent reluctance to crack down on militants. And while all of these things have led to plenty of angry words between government officials, there has been another subtextual issue permeating relations between the two countries for the past few months- cricket, and more specifically, the IPL.

I mentioned the IPL, or Indian Premier League, briefly in my last cricket post, but will explain it in more depth here. Basically, the IPL is a sanctioned domestic league run by the Board of Cricket Control in India in which players from all over the world can compete. The franchises are privately owned and based in cities all over India and they buy players in an auction prior to each season. Unlike the football clubs of the Premier League, though, the IPL lasts only 8 weeks; players spend the rest of the year competing for their countries. The IPL has also been the driving force behind the astronomical success of the 3.5 hour T20 format. The massive financial potential of the teams has led to some of India’s richest individuals getting involved, including industrialist Mukesh Ambani (Mumbai) and Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan (Kolkata). Of course, the team owners are not the only laughing all the way to the bank. Cricket is notoriously old-fashioned when it comes to player compensation. Even though international cricketers have grueling schedules and play all year, they get paid very little compared to their counterparts in football, for example. The IPL has given players a sense of financial security that would be otherwise impossible.

The whole mess began with the IPL auction on January 19th. Eleven Pakistani players were available to be bid on, indicating that teams had previously expressed some interest in them, and yet when the players were actually put up for auction, no teams expressed any interest whatsoever. Because the quality of the Pakistani players in the T20 format was never in question (Pakistan won the T20 world cup in 2009), accusations of political interference immediately set in. Effigies were burnt, the chairman of the Pakistani cricket board called the snub an insult to Pakistan’s honor, and the Indian government did its best to distance itself from the teams’ decisions. Shahrukh Khan, the owner of the Kolkata based franchise, called the snub a tragedy, a statement which drew the ire of the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist political party based in Mumbai. The other IPL teams also entered the fold, denied that the government had anything to do with the snub, and insisted that they were just playing it safe. After all, why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a player if his future availability is subject to the vicissitudes of the mercurial relations between two nations? After a few days things cooled down and SRK’s Kolkata team looked set to sign Abdul Razzaq, a Pakistani all-rounder. However, at the last minute the PCB revoked the NOCs (No objections certificates) it had previously issued in February of 2009.

Needless to say, relations have reached a new low. The views of the rejected Pakistani players are especially telling:

Pakistanis are stunned and hurt that none of their own made the final cut. Shahid Afridi, a spectacular player who was the first on the auction block but fetched no bid, told a cricket Web site that, “The IPL and India have made fun of us and our country.” Pakistani media speculate that Indian team owners were acting under government pressure. [emphasis mine]

Under normal circumstances the exclusion of Pakistani players from the IPL would not be such a big deal, but with bilaterial tours between the nations on hold after the Mumbai attacks, cricket fans in both nations may be deprived of one of the greatest rivalries in sports for some time. And it really is a shame. Every time these two teams take the field, you know something extraordinary is going to happen. Even battle hardened veterans of the game are not invulnerable to the immense pressure of these encounters; mistakes are made, but so are legends. It is said that the former PM of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, once told the Indian team “don’t just win matches, win hearts” prior to the team’s departure to Pakistan, and it would be wise for both nations to recall his words today. Fans on both sides of the border can appreciate beautiful moments in sport, whether it’s Sachin’s imperious straight drive or a toe-crushing reverse-swinging yorker courtesy of Shoaib Akhtar, and the sooner these two countries start playing cricket again, the more likely it is that their battles will be confined to the pitch.