LAHORE, March 25: Indian vice-captain Rahul Dravid giving autographs to young fans at the Qadhafi Stadium, posing with them for photographs and not refusing anyone. Perhaps he was following prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's pre-tour advice "win hearts".
"It is up to the people to decide, we are just trying to do well on the pitch," Dravid responded after being asked if his team had succeeded in winning hearts of the Pakistani people.
May be he was being modest or may be he and his teammates have still more to achieve from this Friendship Series. Whatever Dravid had in mind, the Indian team's public-relationing since their arrival in Pakistan on March 10 has been excellent on this tour, their first full in more than 14 years.
Two of the party's key members, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman took time out to join Pakistan's efforts for eradication of polio while they were in Rawalpindi for the second match of this five-game series. "Let's not allow polio to score even one run,' Tendulkar said.
Captain Saurav Ganguly presented a bat signed by all members of his team to President Gen Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad recently acting as their country's ambassadors of goodwill.
Again when the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad hosted a reception on March 17, the players freely mingled with Pakistani guests and journalists, allowing photo opportunities to them.
In Peshawar that hosted the third game last week, some of the players who went shopping to the famous Kissa Khawani Bazar and Saddar, spoke to shopkeepers just as if they were browsing around in India.
In Lahore on Tuesday, the touring cricketers and the home team attended a reception hosted by the Punjab Chief Minister at the historic Lahore Fort. The players are now feeling comfortable on a tour that had appeared in doubt at the start of the year. But when Prime Minister Vajpayee came down to Islamabad for the SAARC Summit, the picture seemed to brighten.
However the tour came under a cloud again after the Indian cricketers expressed concerns over players' safety leading to a security team being dispatched by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). They came, they saw, and left. It was then left to Prime Minister Vajpayee to decide the fate of the tour, who cleared it much to the relief of fans on both sides of the border.
