Who: India vs Pakistan
What: ICC T20 World Cup 2024 Group A match
When: Sunday, June 9, 10:30am local time (14:30 GMT)
Where: Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, New York, United States
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: Semifinals with India-Pakistan cricket match in the World Cup.
Yet the match is in their home onion for the first time for South Asian Americans.
While a new stadium has recently been built in Long Island to seat thousands on Sunday, players on both sides ponder about the impending game and how it would be much more than just a way of passing a weekend or a necessity to work and earn their pay. From fans point of view cricket as a match is an overflow of long-standing hostility between the two countries separated by the partition of Indian subcontinent by Britain in 1947.
Now the fans from both sides of the border become very emotional about this,” says Vishal Misra, a professor of Columbia University and founder of internet’s first cricket coverage site, now sold to ESPN. “Yes, there are some political motives involved it; India and Pakistan have beefs and thrice in the past have fought wars over it. … Sometimes cricket is used as a substitute.”
The game’s revolutionary upset was evident when the Pakistan Cricket was thrashed by the tournament debutants and co-hosts and Kirsten was confident that his players have contributed and excelled in the future course The challenge is what the team is aiming at.
The challenge, as it do, cannot come any greater than a World Cup clash against rivals India, at that.
“I don’t need to motivate the team for this game, I think they know what I expect from them,” Kirsten said to the press during the wee-end of Saturday.
The South African, who was leading the Indian team to their second ICC Cricket World Cup triumph in 2011, said that playing the high voltage encounter could be “a little bit different” from playing a home series as it is not being held In India or Pakistan but he is expecting tremendous support from their fans in New York.
Kirsten agreed that preparing the pitch for the game will be tough to bat on for the players, both fast bowlers and spin bowlers will get good purchase.
Misra, who claimed to have supported India national team from his childhood continued by saying that for forty years or more many feelings have been imposed or brought into this match which is arguably one of the most attractive ever each time the two teams meet in the world cup.
According to The New York Times, global viewers are expected to reach 400 million for the Sunday match which is far much greater than the 125 million that watched the Superbowl of this year.
Entertainment that North American and European football fans experience when they watch their favourite sports teams perform, “the passion and feelings that these South Asians do, can never be similar,” said Nasar Qureshi who is the chairman of the board at the American Pakistan Foundation. In this case, it turns into a self-egotistical affair.
Cricket diplomacy and tensions on the field in India vs Pakistan match
Born and brought up to be a cricket lover, Qureshi has been supporting this Pakistani cricket team since his childhood days and he is 65 years old. He used to live in Karachi and as a child, was used to taking compact radios to class to follow the games all day.
Commonwealth was a good platform between both the countries for durings decades cricket has been popular in both the countries he said. It had reminiscents of disdainful neighbors and ranged from simple diplomacy. Thus, the ‘cricket diplomacy’ was started by the Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq interestingly in 1987 when he visited India during India Pakistan cricket match though the two countries were uneasy over the issue of the disputed territory of Kashmir.
In more detail, the competition between the two cricket teams increased significantly in 1992, when the two large cricketing nations confronted each other for the first time in the World Cup. In the subsequent few years they confronted each other at numerous international events and while they have been been adversaries to varying degrees in the past, rising political hostilities prevent them from facing the other in bilateral competitions in more than ten years.
This was a bombing carried out in Mumbai in 2008 where a group of Pakistani terrorists attacked this city, and 166 people were killed. Said strain rose even further between the two nations, and this animosity was evident on the pitch. India declined offering full member status with a new neighbour in their home ground, so their World Cup games were even more exciting, Misra added.
“Every single time, the game gets really hyped up,” he said.
The diaspora is bringing cricket to the U.S.
Misra defended that cricket could not be alien to the U. S. It came up alongside baseball, as both stem from the same original sport: rounders In so doing, analysts have heaped blames on rounders for having a substandard measurement system as compared to other soccer playing countries.
But cricket was considered a British game and baseball was an American born game,” he added.
The long-lasting matches that can last for days have also surprised or rather bored most of the American audiences, as noted by Misra. Still, there is a driven push to modify this situation, with the South Asian diaspora in the lead. The game coming up in Long Island is a T20 means that only 3 hours will be needed for this cricket game.
“It has been sort of smoldering with the Pakistani, Indian, and West Indies here in the cricket of the diaspora,” Qureshi said. “An organization has evolved on every level nationwide.”
The U. S. national cricket team, which was given mostly by South Asian and West Indian players, alway an biggest shock to Pakistan on Thursday, defeating the established team of Pakistan in dental war.
“The USA team is playing very well,” Qureshi said about the performance of the US team in the championship. It reduced the morale of a number of Pakistani fans; many called the day ‘Black Friday.’
However, Misra pointed out that although cricket on the subcontinent is still a hostile affair with rears, it has emerged as an expanding symbol how various diaspora groupings can unite. However, he has watched some matches with Pakistani friends in the past and he said that it is more than just appreciating the talents of the local team.
“Like in the USA , no matter whether one is from India or Pakistan or Bangladesh , everybody is referred as Desi,” he said. “The interaction between the Indian and Pakistani communities is frequent, especially in the context of restaurants and social gatherings. As for the hostility, there are jokes and teasing between the Indian and the Pakistani supporters.
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