How Atal Bihari Vajpayee helped revive India-Pakistan cricket 

It can be stated, with little dispute, that the month of August has been one of bereavement for India in 2018. The opening week witnessed the passing away of Dr. M.Karunanidhi in Chennai and the shenanigans which followed that completely overshadowed the news of his death.

Then even as India celebrated it's 72nd Independence Day, the celebrations were marred towards the fag end of the day by the passing away of one of Indian cricket's finest captains, Ajit Wadekar. That was succeeded on Thursday by the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the age of 93 in Delhi.

The folks with a keenness for history and politics will view him one of India's most honest and forward-thinking leaders, but Vajpayee played his part in the revival of cricket's most emotional yet followed rivalry: India vs Pakistan, in 2004.

There was a period when you could describe India-Pakistan cricket with one word: Tension. The saddest part, however, was that there didn't exist a leader who could cut it with a knife and ensure peace prevailed.

After late 1989, no bilateral tour happened until early 1999, when there was a trigger when Pakistan came visiting despite the violence aroused by local party workers in Mumbai and played one of the best series of that phase, a two-match rubber that ended 1-1.

Prior to the 2004 tour, there was apprehension among the Indian players to tour the neighbouring country and expectedly so. Vajpayee paved the way for it in early 2004 when he ignored assassination threats on him and crossed the border to attend a diplomatic summit.

As soon as that happened, the BCCI back home announced that India would tour Pakistan later that year for a three-Test and five-match ODI series, starting on the 1st of March.

However, a new round of confusion had come about a bit earlier, when the then Home Minister LK Advani was in favour of the tour being played, after the conclusion of the General Elections that were slated for that year, in the month of May.

That is when Vajpayee re-entered the scene and on Valentine's Day of 2004, formally announced that India would tour Pakistan prior to it. A week after that, the historic itinerary was out, with India starting the series with the ODIs in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and then back-to-back matches in Lahore. The three Test matches were scheduled to be played in Multan, Lahore and Rawalpindi.

Incidentally, this was the second time that he had paved the way for the resumption of bilateral rubbers between India and Pakistan; first of which came in 1978-79.

The 2004 battle proved to one of India's most memorable tours ever, as they first clinched the ODI series 3-2 and then backed that by winning the Test series 2-1. The tour also witnessed a piece of history when Virender Sehwag became the first Indian to smash a triple hundred in the country's Test history.

In a Twitter Q&A session in 2015, Rahul Dravid termed the tour as the most memorable moment of his career.

Winning the series in Pakistan in 2004. https://t.co/nzMz8JCQkY

— BCCI (@BCCI) December 1, 2015

The revival of India- Pakistan cricket required at the time a leader who saw beyond the conflict and the differences which existed between the political leaders of the two nations. In Vajpayee, they found one, who helped write new pages in the revered history of India-Pakistan cricket.