India, Feb. 21 -- Can we infer that in sports, a team's performance reflects, in some sense, the psychic health of a nation? I ask this question after watching the India-Pakistan T20 World Cup cricket match played on 15 February. It was impossible, watching Pakistan's hapless batting collapse, not to wonder whether the problem lay merely in poor strategy or field selection - or in the malaise of a demoralised State. The manner in which the best Pakistani batsmen flailed around, swinging carelessly without thought of resolve or responsibility, seemed to indicate a palpable dispiritedness and diminishing of hope.

Over the past few years, Pakistan has stumbled from one crisis to another: An economy gasping for breath, a polity throttled by ...