Fans wave both the Indian and Pakistani flags prior to the start of the fifth one-day match between Pakistan and India in Lahore on March 24. (Photo: AFP)

Cricket’ was so far a word missing from the American sports dictionary; encyclopedic though it is, The New York Times did not ever take note of the battles between Australia and England over the ‘Ashes.’

With India’s tour of Pakistan, ‘cricket’ has made a triumphant entry into this country’s sports lexicon. On March 25, The New York Times reported India’s victory in the one-day series in its International section. And Tunku Varadarajan, the editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal, devoted his column ‘In the Fray,’ to the India tour of Pakistan.

Mixing his usual light banter with serious political commentary, Varadarajan opens his piece with a verbal image: “Some days ago, his chest puffed out in that special military way, Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced proudly in Islamabad that ‘both Pakistan and India have weapons of mass destruction.’ His rapt audience, 16 Indian cricket players in their blue blazers, chortled in approval, and later took turns to pump the general’s hands.”

Varadarajan explains that it’s not the nukes that the South Asian neighbors have aimed at each other that the general meant by WMD. Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar, being the world’s fastest bowler, was that nation’s WMD on the cricket ground, as India’s Sachin Tendulkar, scourge of bowlers, was India’s WMD.

“India’s cricket team is currently touring Pakistan,” Varadarajan continues, its first full tour there in 15 years. Not since the days of pingpong diplomacy has so much political attention been paid to a sporting contest between two national teams. And unlike the Sino-U.S. Case – when no one really gave pong