India, July 20 -- In theory, keeping sports and politics separate is a common and popular refrain, but in reality, it is impossible to do so. The overlap is tangible, the ramifications of pursuing the former without acknowledging the ground reality huge and occasionally irreversible. It's through this prism that the forced decision of the organisers to cancel Sunday's India-Pakistan league fixture in the second edition of the World Championship of Legends must be viewed.

Since the heinous attack on innocent and unsuspecting tourists in Pahalgam on April 22, Indo-Pak relations have hit a new low. India's searing counter-surge a fortnight later and the subsequent tenuous ceasefire announcement have done little to quell the outrage in all q...