Beyond Runs and Wickets: Epic Saga of India vs. Pakistan in World Cups So Far

But why? 

Often India or Pakistan have failed to lead in any sport, let alone cricket. Any sport by nature includes an everchanging table of leaders, however, a match between India and Pakistan has been compared to being ‘five time bigger than Superbowl’, according to a CNN report. 

The answer should be obvious, isn’t it? 

Pakistan and India used to be one land, who did not have a cordial break up when the British colonialists left. Bitterness crept into the relationship, with the horrors of partition. Families have to leave their homeland because they did not follow the land’s majority religion. 

Often nostalgia and pain has gripped families who were victims of partition.

What began as drawing of a boundary line to build two different nations-India and Pakistan- transcended into mistrust, military wars among others. In the 76 years that followed India and Pakistan have fought three wars and introduced heavy restrictions on exchanges of goods or civilians, despite the two countries sharing a border, a culture and a deeply intertwined history.

However, what remained unchanged is the fanaticism around cricket, which incidentally is a legacy of British colonial rule. A cricket match between India and Pakistan has the potential to divide and unite within the same game. 

In October 1952, five years after the Indian subcontinent won independence from its British colonial rulers, a young Pakistan cricket team stepped foot in the newly formed Republic of India.

They had arrived to play a highly anticipated test series – the first for Pakistan after the country’s creation in 1947.

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For many of the players, the drive from Lahore in the Muslim-majority nation of Pakistan, to Amritsar in Hindu-majority India, brought back painful memories of a bloody partition – one that hastily divided the former colony along religious lines with devastating results and gave rise to a fierce geopolitical rivalry.

Pakistan has not toured India since 2016. But on Saturday, for the first time in seven years, these two rivals will play each other on Indian soil in the opening stages of Cricket World Cup, which India is hosting.

Tensions have always simmered between India and Pakistan linked to a decades-long conflict in Kashmir. 

Owing to that India versus Pakistan matches had been banned temporarily. 

In more recent years games have taken place on neutral ground, in a third country such as Sri Lanka or the UAE, to prevent tensions between fans from simmering over.

On Saturday, the world is anticipating the most number of viewers will be glued to their TV screen to closely inspect, comment, and enjoy when Rohit Sharma’s Men in Blue play against Babar Azam’s Men in Green. 

While India and Pakistan have, over the decades, worked hard to shed the image of a subject of their erstwhile colonial rulers, one thing is clear: the game of cricket is no longer viewed as a gentleman’s sport inherited from the British.

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Updated: 13 Oct 2023, 06:42 PM IST