Now Match Cricket – It’s one of the fiercest rivalries in sports, with millions tuning in every time the two teams play, an audience that surpasses the Super Bowl. But when India and Pakistan meet on the cricket field, the game is often overshadowed by frosty relations between the two neighbors, who have fought several wars with each other over the past 75 years.
The two teams faced each other in the Men’s Cricket World Cup in India on Saturday, a match which the Indian team won by a comfortable margin. The match, a league match at the 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium, was sold out. Hotel prices in Ahmedabad, the site of the stadium named after India’s fiercely nationalist prime minister, were five to ten times higher than normal.
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“This is the most popular game in the history of cricket,” said Shehryar Jafri, a 30-year-old journalist and cricket enthusiast in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. “We live every ball, every run and every moment.”
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But there were few Pakistani fans like Mr. Despite the stadium being closer to Karachi than New Delhi, it drew huge crowds. It is difficult for Pakistanis to get permission to visit India, and even Pakistani fans, who bought tickets, were not granted visas for the World Cup. Only a few Pakistani journalists were given travel permits, who did not arrive until the eve of the match, leaving them scrambling to reach Ahmedabad in time.
Indian batsman Rohit Sharma plays a stroke during Saturday’s match in Ahmedabad. Credit… Atul Locke for The New York Times
In the months leading up to the tournament, it is also unclear whether the Pakistan team will participate.
India refused to travel to Pakistan for another tournament later this summer, using its huge influence over cricket’s international governing body (India is the sport’s biggest economic power) to move the matches to neutral venues in Sri Lanka. Pakistan in turn warned that it might pull out of the World Cup in India, a threat it eventually abandoned.
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Cricket relations between India and Pakistan have fluctuated between the two countries since Pakistan was separated from India in the bloody British Partition of 1947. Sometimes India-Pakistan games, which attract similar passions on both sides of the border, are used to break the ice when tensions are particularly high, providing an important space for exchange.
When the two nations first met on the cricket field in the early 1950s, the division in the composition of the teams was stark: Pakistan’s team consisted of players who had played for India only years earlier.
For several years, relations improved sufficiently between the wars that India and Pakistan even co-hosted the World Cup in 1987 and 1996.
The most recent tension dates back to 2008, when Pakistani militants crossed into India in a fishing boat and carried out a horrific terror attack in Mumbai, killing more than 160 people.
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Bilateral cricket ties have since been largely suspended, leaving Pakistani players out of the lucrative Indian Premier League, which features the world’s best players. In the 15 years since the attacks, national teams have played only as part of major global events. Saturday’s match will be Pakistan’s first in India in seven years.
The Indian cricket team plays its national anthem on Saturday. Credit… Atul Locke for The New York Times
India’s Sports Minister Anurag Thakur recently reiterated that despite Pakistan’s participation in this World Cup, New Delhi’s stance on resuming cricket ties will not change “until terrorism stops”.
In recent years, however, India’s security calculations have changed significantly. Pakistan, lost in its own political inaction and economic crisis, is considered to pose no significant threat. New Delhi now sees China as its main border concern, with both countries’ armies locked in a high barrier in the Himalayas for the past three years.
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Violence still erupts in Kashmir, a restive region disputed between India and Pakistan. Despite a crackdown by the Indian government, which has suspended democracy for four years and increased an already heavy military presence, militants supported and trained in Pakistan continue to carry out occasional attacks.
Indian fans arrive at the Narendra Modi Stadium for the Men’s Cricket World Cup on Saturday. Credit… Atul Locke for The New York Times
For the Hindu nationalist base of Mr. Even if China now poses the biggest threat, Modi, Pakistan is a simple populist rallying cry. Dozens of people have been prosecuted in India for demonstrating in support of the Pakistan team. After four Indian soldiers were killed in an attack in Kashmir last month, many Mr. Modi asked to boycott the Pakistani team.
The backlash grew after the Pakistan team was accorded a similar welcome to other teams at their hotel in Ahmedabad with traditional dances and other festivities and attracted some opposition politicians.
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In Pakistan, which is in the grip of Islamic militancy, expressions of support for the other side have also led to court cases and imprisonment.
Former Pakistani star Shahid Afridi faces a treason case after he told an Indian audience during a tour that he “didn’t even get this much love from Pakistan”. A Pakistani tailor in the country’s Punjab state was jailed for flying the Indian flag, which he said was because he was an avid fan of Indian cricket star Virat Kohli.
Shaheen Shah Afridi of Pakistan celebrates after the dismissal of Indian batsman Shubman Gill. Credit… Atul Locke for The New York Times
However, relations between the players have often been heated. Players from previous generations often spoke of deep bonds of friendship, sharing memories of hospitality and late-night hotel room banter when they could travel to each other’s countries more often.
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This is also the case when the women’s teams of the two countries have faced each other. A selfie of Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur posing with the daughter of Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof and Mrs Maroof after a match last year went viral.
Indian authorities deployed 11,000 police and guards around the Ahmedabad stadium as a security measure, even with supporters of one of the two rivals filling the stadium.
Among them were three generations of the Sadashivan family, who took an early morning flight from New Delhi on Saturday.
Raghav, 7, wears the blue jersey of the Indian team, tucked into his white cricket pants that show traces of dirt from practice. As the family waits to board the flight, Raghav is busy making shadows with the roll up poster he is going to finish painting on the flight.
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In the end, the Indian team gave their fans a lot to celebrate as they maintained their dominance over the Pakistani team in the World Cup clash. The crowd jumped and roared at every shot of the Indian batsmen. Moments of success by the Pakistani players were sometimes met with light applause, but were mostly greeted by a silent crowd.
On at least one occasion, a section of the crowd tried to shout Hindu religious chants, regarded by hardliners as war cries, at Pakistani batsmen returning to the dugout.
Asif Syed, one of only two Pakistani fans in green shirts in what was otherwise a sea of blue in a section of the stands, flew in from Houston, Texas on an American passport.
It was her first time in India, so her Indian friends hosting her in New Delhi arranged a rare opportunity for her: to visit relatives, her grandmother’s cousins, whom she had never met before.
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Syed said his grandparents lived outside Delhi before partition and were forced to move to Pakistan.
“I walked the streets,” he said. “I searched for my roots and found the house where they lived.”
Mujeeb Mashal is the South Asia Bureau Chief of The Times. Born in Kabul, he wrote for magazines such as The Atlantic, Harper’s and Time before joining The Times. More about Mujib Mashal
A version of this article appears in print in Section A, page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: For bitter rivals India and Pakistan, match is more than cricket. Reprint Order | Today’s Paper | Subscribe Reliable cricket match predictions help inform betting decisions and fantasy teams before the first ball. Post-match recaps analyze key performances.
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