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5,000 spectators, ditto securitymen

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have made elobarate details to attend to the security issue this year. We want to make sure there is no repeat of what happened last year in the Inzamamul Haq episode," Bill Sinrich, vice president of the International Management Group, promoters of the Sahara Cup, had the air of a general who has just heard on his field telephone that his men had conquered an important rival bastion.

IMG boosted security at the ground this year, the impetus apparently being the recent nuclear tests by both nations. It was feared that groups of both countries could mount pickets. "That's our main worry," said Maggie Hermant of IMG.

There are 350,000 people of Indian and Pakistani origin in Canada.

IMG did try and draw a distinction between possible protestors outside the club and peaceful spectators inside. "We don't envision any problems inside, as those fans will be there to enjoy the game," said Hermant.

However, the IMG's promise of laissez faire is not borne out by the facts. In the advertisements promoting this year's Sahara Cup, you find the fine print: "Alcohol, bottles, cans, blow horns, flagpoles, video cameras are not permitted on the grounds. All other items perceived as a danger to players and fans will be disallowed at the event manager's discretion."

Says Haroon Siddiqui, a columnist with The Toronto Star , "This goes well beyond the policy of the SkyDome and Maple Leaf Gardens (the two places where bigger games in front of bigger audiences take place). What is IMG trying to convey - that cricket-mad ethnics can't be trusted? Or are the organisers over-reacting to Inzamamul Haq's episode of last year?"

This is in sharp contract to the promoters and organisers constant harping on how they want to promote cricket in Canada -- for this is surely no way to go about it. At best, the crowd does not cross 5,000 -- and there seems to be as many security personnel present for the event.

The paying public has never exceeded 5,000, since for the last three years the makeshift stands remain the same, there has been no attempt to increase the capacity. In fact, despite the enormous response, there will be no attempt to add to the capacity, simply because this is not seen as a gate-money event. This is an event for television, for the billions back in the sub-continent watching the action on the idiot box.

"See, it is not easy for us to increase the stands. First, the lesser the stands, the more crowded they appear on television -- which boosts cricket's market enormously. We can't have the event being played in front of empty stands," said a top cricket official of the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club.

"Further, the neighbours who live beyond this ground, they don't like too much of intrusion in their day-to-day life," said the same official. "That is also the reason why security needs to be beefed up.

"Suppose you are allowed to bring those big speakers with you. You not only break the concentration of the players in the middle, but also the neighbourhood does not like it. We can't upset them. We can't also upset our regular members, the members of the club who come here for skating, tennis and curling and a bit of fun.

"This is what happened last year. Inzamam might not have heard what was happening outside the stadium but for those mega-phones. Tell me, for god's sake, why do you need those megaphones at the ground?" concluded the official.

There is no sign of Shiv Kumar Thind this year. Thind was the gentleman who upset Haq, and then bore the brunt of the player's anger. Today he is persona non grata, for all practical purposes, at this club. Says Siddiqui: "Thind and his friend Vicky Saini had brought along a megaphone (as had many others). Those of us sitting close by didn't mind much, because their wit made up for their noise. By midafternoon they had picked on Haq for his girth with such taunts as "Aaloo, Potato, O Mr Potato."

"At drinks break, Haq walked towards our stand, and suddenly, jumped over the boards and bounded up the dozen or so steps to get at Thind and Saini. I could see most but not all the altercation. Four eyewitnesses said it was Haq who grabbed Thind and initiated the pushing and shoving in which Thind's shirt was torn.

"As Haq rushed back down to the field, Thind and Saini followed. The megaphone was hurled forward. Haq was soon waving a bat. But people held him back.

"As he was led away, the angry crowd was chanting at the police. 'Charge him, charge him' and at Thind and Saini: 'Sue him, sue him'."

Andrew Wildblod, an IMG honcho from Britain, appeared and, in the manner of a duke lecturing the locals of his foreign duchy, was shouting: "If you don't shut up, there will be no cricket."

"Fine," the crowd yelled back. "We don't want any, if that's how a player is going to behave."

Haq's response - as also that of his former captain, Wasim Akram, then doing commentary on ESPN - was to play the card of Indo-Pakistan rivalry. He said the heckler had been "abusing my religion, country and family members."

"Not so," says Siddiqui. "Thind had been an equal opportunity hecler, mocking players from both teams and in far more polite terms than what we one hears regularly at NHL, CFL and NBA games. He never used any profanity. With his dignified, turbaned Sikh father sitting next to him, the young man would not have dared.

"Haq was suspended for two games and charged with three counts of assault; Thind was charged with one. Both were sensible enough to drop the charges later. End of story.

"So, why is the civic sense of Canadian fans being questioned? And why is it being presumed that they may attack the players? Or that they are importing the troubles of India and Pakistan?" demands Siddiqui.

For now, there are no answers. Merely, massive security...