Cricket fans from all over are descending on New York this weekend to watch one of the most highly anticipated sporting events in the world: the India-Pakistan World Cup match.
And for the first time for South Asian Americans, the match is in their backyard.
As a newly constructed stadium on Long Island braces for thousands on Sunday, those on both sides reflect on the gravity of the matchup, and how it means much more to them than just another sporting event. For fans, the match can be a forum for long-standing tensions between the two countries, divided in 1947 by the British partition of the subcontinent.
“Fans from both sides of the border get really emotional about it,” said Vishal Misra, a Columbia University professor and the founder of Cricinfo, a popular cricket coverage website that was later sold to ESPN. “There are some political undertones to it; India and Pakistan have fought wars. … Sometimes the cricket game acts as a proxy.”
Misra, a fan of the Indian national team since childhood, said that for decades, fans have projected many feelings onto the matchup, which is one of the most watched sporting events in the world each time the teams meet at the World Cup.
According to The New York Times, Sunday’s match is set to be watched by 400 million people, compared to 125 million who tuned in to this year’s Super Bowl.
When fans in the West watch their favorite sports teams play, “their fervor and emotions can never reach the level which South Asians do,” said Nasar Qureshi, chairman of the board at the American Pakistan Foundation. “It becomes an issue of ego.”
‘Cricket diplomacy’ and tensions on the field
Qureshi, 65, has been a fan of this Pakistani cricket team since childhood. Growing up in Karachi, he remembers sneaking handheld radios into class to keep up with the games throughout the day.
Cricket has been a phenomenon in both countries for decades, he said. It was both a rivalry between contemptuous neighbors and a tool for…
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