In that warm and muggy north Indian autumn of 1978, the cricket lover might have been forgiven for asking if the tour had been organised by the cricket board or the ministry of external affairs. India were going to play cricket in Pakistan after a long layoff, in fact the first time after the ’65 and ’71 wars between the two countries.

General Zia was in full control. There was a lull along the LoC, terrorism was something unknown in this subcontinent and there were back channel negotiations in progress. The average Indian thought that the initials ISI stood for the Indian Statistical Institute.

The first throw of the dice was the appointment of Maharajah Fatesingh Rao Gaekwad as the manager. “Jackie” Baroda knew little of cricket but was an old Pakistan hand. It was said that he had played a large humanitarian role in giving shelter in his palace to hundreds of Muslims during the communal riots of the late 1940s. The local dailies made sure Karachi and Lahore knew about this.

The Raja was a fine actor and would begin his managerial speeches with moist eyes and the opening lines “…rona aata hai (I feel like crying)”, and he would quote from Allama Iqbal’s “Saare jahan se achcha, Hindustan hamara” saying that for the great poet Iqbal, Hindustan meant undivided India.

It was not easy to get visas otherwise, but the moment you said you were a cricket writer, all was smooth sailing. In fact, some top political columnists from India also made the trip even though they might have thought that “second slip” referred to the Bangladesh war or “extra cover” meant air cover for ground troops.

We were invited to the homes of such celebrities as Pakistan’s top TV anchor Anwar Maqsood, Punjab chief justice Shaukat Ghoraya and singer Noor Jehan. When we asked about Mehdi Hasan, the legendary ghazal singer, a concert for the Indian team was promptly organised at the palatial home of Mehmood Ali, described as the Dilip Kumar of Pakistan.

Sitting around the harmonium on the carpet were Bishen Bedi, umpire Shakoor Rana, Imran Khan, the elegant actress Babra Sharif and Himachal Som from the Indian high commission who would save us from a sticky situation in the cantonment township of Sahiwal.

Mehdi Hasan was thrilled to learn how much the Indian visitors knew of Ahmed Faraz, Mir Taki Mir and Mirza Ghalib and played all our requests. If ever there was cultural diplomacy between recently warring nations, it was here.

Sahiwal was a tense experience. Following trouble between Bishen and umpire Shakoor Rana because of bouncers from Sarfraz Nawaz, Bishen staged a walkout. The crowd of 10,000 stood on their feet chanting slogans like “Nara-e-tadbir, Allah ho Akbar” and “Hindustan murdabad”.

Himachal Som got a regiment of Sutlej Rangers to protect us in the commentary box where I shared the mike with Omar Kureishi and Chishty Mujahid.

Gaekwad addressed the crowd from the PA microphone with the words “Mere doston”, even trying to joke that Bedi had gone into the pavilion to look for taller batsmen since Vishwanath had been batting!

He also brought the mercurial Javed Miandad from the dressing room and stood with his arms around the then young batsman. The crowd cooled down.

That evening we stayed back in our dak bungalow realising that diplomacy and alertness had saved us but we might be less lucky next time. Pakistan was being rapidly Islamised under Zia and prohibition was complete. But it might be recorded that none of us ever ran out of fuel and that evening was wet and long.

Those were pretty informal days. We were driving from Lahore to Faisalabad with our charming liaison officer Shafqat Rana, Lala Amarnath and Mumbai’s media tycoon Khalid Ansari. As we passed the ultra-top security Sargodha airbase with its fighter planes and underground hangars, Shafqat light-heartedly said: “Anyone want to go in?”

The bleak and chilly winter of 1982-83 was a contrast at all levels. The prolonged series saw India getting pulverised on the field, unhappy off the field and direly missing their great spinners. So who were the diplomats who made a difference?

Well, there was the amiable Zaheer Abbas, who had open house for visiting cricket players and scribes alike. When we asked about Ghulam Ali (a Shia like Zaheer), the great batsman arranged a concert at his palatial home for all of us. In very “dry” Lahore, ’keeper Wasim Bari took us to the home of a Parsi cinema owner so that we might not feel too dehydrated!

And there was the incident in Lahore. Col. Abdul Rehman Khan Niazi (Bubli to his friends) had thrown a party for us. Imran, Younis Khan and Miandad were there alongside several Indian cricketers. Military-discounted alcohol was flowing and the party was in the forbidden cantonment area. A division of military police raided the party.

The first thing they did was to walk up to Dilip Doshi and Sunil Gavaskar saying in Urdu that they were mehmaan and that no harm would come to them. Then they broke many bottles and arrested one or two guests —all locals.

The Indians were transported back to the Hilton Hotel in a luxury car with a police escort.

For me the man of the match during this tour was our own diplomat, high commissioner G. Parthasarathy who travelled with the Indian team doing his own version of Jackie Baroda. He sorted out two major hitches — the invasion of the Karachi pitch by members of the Islami Jamiat Talaba during a match and the stopover in Multan where hotel rooms for journalists had been cancelled. The proof of GP’s success was the favourable write-ups he got in both the Dawn and The Nation.

The scene was now ready for Zia-ul Haq’s visit to Jaipur in February 1987. His one-day trip to the Pink City had all the trappings of “breaking the ice”, a phrase used as often as the one in which India’s 1978 visit was billed as the one that “would open all doors”.

A short tour during late 1984 to Pakistan ended suddenly on the 31st of October, 1984 — the fateful day of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Even as we prepared to leave the country in a hurry with the one-day match being called off halfway, a senior member of the Pakistan cricket board was gracious enough to invite the visiting Indians to a condolence meeting. The event was given ample publicity and proved to be another diplomatic coup for Indo-Pak relations.

There were too many negative factors during the ’89 tour of Pakistan. Internally, the Muhajir Qaumi Movement was making its presence felt and the fundamentalists were running wild even to the extent of chucking stones at skipper Srikkanth during a match.

Journalists and indeed all Indian visitors were being shadowed by the police and the grace appeared to have gone out of cricket. Even the diplomats appeared to have deserted the game.