It’s one of the fiercest rivalries in sports, with hundreds of millions of people watching each game between the two teams, a viewership dwarfed by the Super Bowl. But when India and Pakistan meet on a cricket field, the match is often overshadowed by the fractious relationship between the two neighbors, who have been at war many times over the past 75 years.
On Saturday, the two countries faced each other in the Men’s Cricket World Cup in India. The match, held at the 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium, was sold out. Hotel prices in Ahmedabad, the venue for the stadium named after India’s ardent nationalist prime minister, were five to 10 times higher than usual.
“This is the most exciting match in the history of cricket,” said Sheharyar Jafri, 30, a journalist and cricket enthusiast from Pakistan’s port city of Karachi. “We live every ball, every run and every moment.”
But even though the stadium is closer to Karachi than New Delhi, there were few Pakistani fans like Jafri among the large crowd. It is difficult for Pakistanis to obtain permission to visit India, and Pakistani fans were not issued visas for the World Cup. Only a few Pakistani journalists received permission to travel, but only on the eve of the match, leaving them scrambling to get to Ahmedabad in time.
In the months leading up to the tournament, it was not even clear if the Pakistani team would participate.
India has refused to travel to Pakistan for another tournament later this summer, using its enormous influence in cricket’s international governing body (India is the sport’s biggest economy) to sway the match. The venue was changed to a neutral venue in Sri Lanka. In response, Pakistan threatened to withdraw from the World Cup in India, but ultimately dropped that threat.
Ever since Pakistan was separated from India in the bloody Partition by Britain in 1947, cricket relations between India and Pakistan have fluctuated along with the relationship between the two countries. At times, India-Pakistan matches, which attract equal enthusiasm on both sides of the border, are used to defuse tensions and provide an important space for interaction when tensions are particularly high.
When the two countries first met on a cricket field in the early 1950s, there was a clear gap in the composition of the teams. Pakistan’s team also included players who had played in India a few years ago.
Over the years, India and Pakistan mended relations between wars and co-hosted the World Cup in 1987 and 1996.
Recent tensions largely date back to 2008. At this time, Pakistani militants crossed into India on a fishing boat and launched a gruesome terrorist attack in Mumbai, killing more than 160 people.
Since then, bilateral cricket relations have remained suspended, with Pakistani players barred from the lucrative Indian Premier League, which features the world’s best players. In the 15 years since the attack, national teams have only played against each other as part of major global events. Saturday’s match will be Pakistan’s first match in India in seven years.
India’s Sports Minister Anurag Thakur recently reiterated that despite Pakistan’s participation in the World Cup, New Delhi’s position on the resumption of cricket remains unchanged “until terrorism is stopped.”
But in recent years, India’s security calculus has changed significantly. Pakistan, beset by its own political dysfunction and economic crisis, is seen as posing little serious threat. New Delhi currently considers China its biggest border issue. The two countries’ militaries have been locked in a stalemate high in the Himalayas for the past three years.
Kashmir, a restive region disputed between India and Pakistan, continues to experience sporadic outbreaks of violence. Insurgents supported and trained in Pakistan continue to carry out occasional ambush attacks, even as India’s government crackdown has suspended democracy in the country for four years and strengthened its already large military presence.
Increasing political polarization on both sides of the border is also not having a positive impact on bilateral relations.
For Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist base, Pakistan remains vulnerable to populist support, even though China now poses a greater threat. Dozens of people were jailed in India for expressing support for the Pakistan team. Many of Mr. Modi’s right-wing supporters called for a boycott of the Pakistan national team after an attack in Kashmir last month left four Indian soldiers dead.
The backlash intensified and involved some opposition politicians after the Pakistan team received a similar welcome to other teams at an Ahmedabad hotel with traditional dances and other celebratory events.
Even in Pakistan, which is under the control of Islamic militants, expressing support for the other side has led to trials and imprisonment.
Former Pakistan star Shahid Afridi faced treason charges after telling an Indian audience during a tour that he “never got this much love from Pakistan either.” He said a Pakistani tailor from Punjab was jailed for flying the Indian flag because he was a big fan of Indian cricketer Virat Kohli.
However, the relationships between players are often warm. Previous generations of players often spoke of deep friendships, sharing fond memories of hospitality and late-night hotel pranks from a time when they could travel frequently to each other’s countries.
The same applies when women’s teams from both countries play against each other. After a match last year, a selfie of Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur posing with Pakistan captain Bisma Maroof and Maroof’s baby daughter went viral online.
Indian authorities had deployed 11,000 police and security personnel around the stadium in Ahmedabad as a security measure. This was despite the fact that only one of the two passionate rivals had fans filling the stadium.
Among them were three generations of the Sadasivan family who left New Delhi on an early Saturday morning flight.
Seven-year-old Gaurav was wearing the Indian team’s blue jersey and white cricket pants with practice stains. While his family was waiting to board the plane, Gaurav was busy shadow-batting with a rolled-up sign saying he was done painting on the plane.
His sign read “Let’s be friends” and also featured the flags of India and Pakistan.
Aasif Saeed, one of only two Pakistani fans wearing a green jersey in what used to be a sea of blue in one corner of the stands, had flown in from Houston, Texas, on an American passport.
Since it was his first time coming to India, his Indian friends hosting him in New Delhi gave him a rare opportunity to visit relatives he had never met before, namely his grandmother’s cousins. They provided him with an opportunity.
Saeed said his grandparents lived on the outskirts of Delhi before Partition and were forced to migrate to what became Pakistan.
“I walked down the street,” he said. “I traced my roots and found the houses where they lived.”
Fans in Pakistan who had purchased advance tickets but were unable to obtain visas were trying to make plans to return home to see the film due to their disappointment.
Muhammad Subhanullah, 36, a software engineer from Islamabad, said he spent $36 on tickets.
“Many people advised me not to buy tickets for the match as India hardly issues visas to Pakistanis. But we were hopeful,” he said. Ta. “The money and effort I spent on buying tickets was wasted.”
He said he was considering watching Saturday’s match, in which Pakistan were clearly the underdogs, at a local screening.
“It’s always fun to watch with a crowd,” he said.
