At the global crossroads of cultures, New Yorkers will see a thrilling first on Sunday when opposing Asian powers, India and Pakistan, play cricket in a World Cup match hosted in a US city.
“The match that everyone wants to watch is India vs Pakistan, and it’s right here in our backyard,” stated Ajith Shetty, the head of two regional cricket leagues.
“I’m ecstatic,” the native Indian told AFP on Friday. Fans surveyed in the thriving Little India area of Queens, some ten miles from the temporary stadium in Eisenhower Park on Long Island, expressed disappointment that they would not be able to attend the game in person.
“I inquired about it, but the cost is too high. According to 31-year-old Rajeet Krishna, “I’ll watch it on my mobile.” The 34,000 stadium tickets had been sold out for months prior to the match, so he added, “Pakistan versus India is special… there’s a long history there.”
Unlike the traditional test match style, which involves five days of matches, this inaugural Cricket World Cup staged in the United States is in the T20 format, with games lasting approximately three hours.
Indian Premier League founder and former president Lalit Modi has criticized the exorbitant prices of tickets on the secondary market, where they are selling for at least $8,000.
In an interview with X, he stated that the event “in the US is for game expansion & fan engagement, not a means to make profits on gate collections.”
Outside of the Indian and Pakistani communities, immigrants from other South Asian nations where cricket is a popular sport look forward to the match.
Faros Ahmed, a 58-year-old man of Bangladeshi descent, compared the competition to that of a “lion and tiger.”
“This is a high-voltage match, and even though I’m not Indian or Pakistani, I’m going to watch it,” declared the restaurant manager, who will be showing the game for his patrons and who loves Pakistan. Despite the fact that both nations are dominant in cricket, there aren’t often head-to-head encounters between them.
The last test match between the two teams was in 2007. They don’t play each other outside of the International Cricket Federation’s (ICC) official competitions.
Indian-born Roop Sajnani, who runs a sari store, declared, “We are going to beat them and take revenge.”
The 85-year-old remembered the forced migration of his Hindu family into India before to the 1947 split from what is now Pakistan.
Bangladeshis, who largely supported Pakistan, from which Bangladesh earned independence in 1971, own and operate many of the shops and restaurants in Little India.
“Let’s just say we like to see India lose against all the teams,” said Bangladeshi student Mostakim Shahed, 20.
“If you look at Asia, yes, India is the best team,” he stated. “They already have backing; they are the wealthiest cricket team. Pakistan, meanwhile, doesn’t really have any support.”
The match on Sunday is vital for Pakistan, which might be eliminated in the first round following an unexpected loss to the 18th-ranked United States on Thursday. Pakistani writer Wajahat S. Khan, who resides in New York, claimed he have “never been more excited or terrified about a cricket match at the same time.” “The information is true. Pakistan is probably going to come out on top. It will probably be a massacre. However, Pakistan’s cricket team is unbeatable. Never.”
The United States’ victory over Pakistan, ranked sixth, has increased interest in cricket in the nation, despite the sport’s continued exclusion from the mainstream.
“Every news outlet is discussing it, and people are defining cricket. People are starting to understand what cricket is,” Shetty remarked. The local cricket organizer believes that the competition, which ends at the end of June, would result in “better infrastructure” for players in the New York region. However, the Long Island stadium will not help them; it will be demolished in July, forcing local leagues to continue their search for a purpose-built venue.
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