In India vs. Pakistan Cricket Match, Passions Unleashed

BIRMINGHAM, England â€" Measured by the numbers who care about it, the Champions Trophy cricket match between Pakistan and India can claim to be a continuation of the world’s greatest sporting rivalry.

Shikhar Dhawan, India’s opening batsman, has surpassed the century mark in all three innings he has played for his country this year.

It is as if all the feelings of the New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox rivalry in baseball, Barcelona vs. Real Madrid in soccer and England vs. Australia in any sport had been distilled and deepened with an extra dose of hostile geopolitics and the passions of 1.4 million people.

Of course, not every single person in Pakistan and India will be transfixed by events at Edgbaston stadium on Saturday, any more than the whole of Boston and New York really stops for the Red Sox against the Yankees. But plenty will, not only back home in South Asia but among the vast global diasporas of the two nations.

That diaspora is one reason Birmingham is an ideal location for the clash. England’s second-most-populous city has just over one million people, of whom around one-fifth â€" divided two to one in favor of Pakistan â€" have roots in one of the South Asian giants.

It will be only the third time that the British Asians who turn any match in Britain involving either India or Pakistan into a vibrantly colorful occasion have had a chance to see the two go competitively head to head. India won the World Cup match in Manchester in 1999, but Pakistan took revenge at Birmingham in the 2004 Champions Trophy.

Their passion, and the scarcity of these occasions, made this match the hot ticket of the entire event â€" an 18-day, 15-match contest in One Day International format for the eight leading nations in cricket. The 25,000-capacity Edgbaston ground sold out within two hours of tickets going on sale.

Ironically, it could not matter less in terms of the tournament. India is already in the semifinals after winning its first two matches.

Pakistan is out, having lost twice. But “there is no such thing as a dead rubber when India and Pakistan are playing,” Sunil Gavaskar, India’s greatest batsman before the contemporary hero Sachin Tendulkar, told the Press Trust of India. “Results are important for followers of both countries,” he said.

Abdul Qadir, one of the finest bowlers in Pakistan cricket history, told Press Trust that the match was “a final before the final for cricket fans of both countries.”

And there is more than just regional bragging rights at stake.

“India would want to continue with their winning rhythm,” Gavaskar said. “If you lose, you start to doubt yourself.”

That winning rhythm is the same one India used to win the World Cup at home two years ago â€" scoring so many runs that the limits of its bowling did not matter.

Its success recently has rested on the brilliance of the opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan, undoubtedly international cricket’s Rookie of 2013 so far.

Dhawan has played three innings for India this year, and passed 100 in all of them. He played an extraordinary five-day test debut innings of 187 against Australia in March. Then he took 114 off South Africa’s formidable bowling in the opening match of the Champions Trophy at Cardiff, driving India to a match-winning total of well over 300.

“He’s got the whole package,” said South Africa’s captain, A.B. de Villiers, who has been Dhawan’s teammate in Indian Premier League cricket, adding the alarming thought, “I’m sure he’ll get better.”

Dhawan followed with 102 not out against West Indies as India chased down a target of 234 to win with more than 10 of their 50 six-ball overs to spare. Dwayne Bravo, captain of West Indies, said he thought India was capable of winning the tournament and acclaimed his opposite number, M.S. Dhoni, as “one of the greatest captains who has played the game.”

Pakistan will be hoping that the atmosphere Saturday echoes that of its match against South Africa in the past week, when its massed supporters turned Edgbaston into a home field. But it will have to bat vastly better than in either of its opening matches. It has been dismissed for the hopelessly inadequate totals of 170 and 167. Almost all of those runs have come from two batsmen, captain Misbah ul-Haq and opener Nasir Jamshed.

“At the moment nobody is justifying his place,” Misbah said after the loss to South Africa. While nothing in his personal performance justified the booing by some fans, he accepted they had a right to be angry. “One day zindabad,” he said, referring to the Urdu expression for “long live,” “next day boo â€" supporters are like that.

“But when you play like this, they have a right to say this,” he said.

Pakistan’s players know a victory over India would mean their team’s failure in the tournament would largely be forgotten. But that short-term pleasure might make for more long-term pain if it reduced the current pressure for a badly needed examination of the Pakistan game’s underlying weakness.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 15, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.