Amid the hustle and bustle of the Edgbaston Road one man stood quite still. The crowd flowed around him like a river past a rock, men, women and children on their way to the game, all sporting splashes of brilliant green and bright sky blue. Nearby a band banged drums while fans danced giddy circles around them. Off to one side, pedlars cried out “hats, horns, scarves and masks” and touts looking for spare tickets muttered muted inquiries under their breath.
Theirs was a slow business, since no one was selling. TV crews cut back and forth across the stream, looking for people to interview. And over the back someone took a match to a pack of fireworks, so plumes of blue smoke swirled overhead. In the middle of it all the standing man held a homemade sign: “London, Manchester, Mumbai, Terror Never Wins”.
In the morning the International Cricket Council put out a press release confirming that the tournament would go on, just as the Ashes had after the London bombings in 2005. Security was already tight after the attack in Manchester and the police had warned spectators to expect long queues. So a lot of people were delayed getting into the ground. But no one seemed to mind.
Besides, India’s openers took it especially slow and steady in the first few overs, so the latecomers did not miss anything much. India took their time measuring Pakistan’s attack. They scored 72 runs in the final four overs, more than they managed in the entirety of the first 15. By the end of the innings one could spot the Pakistan fans by looking for the flat patches in the stands, because they were the only ones sitting down.
Time was when was the crowds at these games needed to be policed, not protected. India v Pakistan is one of the most fervid fixtures in all of sport and in the 1990s feelings ran so hot that matches boiled up and over. Games between the teams were often interrupted, sometimes abandoned. In 1996 a fight even broke out on the pitch during the final of the Under-15 World Cup between the teams, at Lord’s of all places. It got so bad that during the 1999 World Cup the England and Wales Cricket Board asked the government to introduce emergency legislation to outlaw pitch invasions at cricket stadiums after India’s captain, Mohammad Azharuddin, warned that “somebody was going to get killed” during the match between India and Pakistan at Old Trafford.
The fixture still carries a lot of baggage. The two teams have not played a Test in a decade and their last limited‑overs series finished in January 2013. Both boards say they are keen to play again but the Indian government will not allow it. This week the sports minister, Vijay Goel, said that India and Pakistan would not be playing a bilateral series any time soon because “cricket and terrorism can’t go hand-in-hand”. Lately they have played only when they have been drawn together in ICC tournaments, something which, luckily enough for the fans, sponsors and TV networks, seems to happen with uncanny regularity. But despite all that, or perhaps because of it, the fixture does not seem to generate as much heat as it once did.
“Nothing different, to be honest,” was Virat Kohli’s blunt assessment before this match. “I know it sounds pretty boring but this is exactly what we feel as cricketers.” Kohli could afford to be blasé. India have now won eight of the nine games the two teams have played in tournaments this decade, the only exception being a match in the Asia Cup in 2014. So the gulf between the two teams feels as wide now as it has ever been. Partly this is because Pakistan are rebuilding their team. The last time they played a one-day international against India, in the 2015 World Cup, they had Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal, Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq in the team.
Three are retired now, and the fourth, Akmal, was kicked out of the squad because he failed a fitness test. This is a callow Pakistan team then, out-matched by an outstanding Indian side hardened by all those seasons of intense limited overs cricket in the Indian Premier League. When the game started to escape the Pakistanis they were not able to regain any measure of control over it. They ran flush out of luck too, which did not help. Their bowling attack collapsed in the final overs as Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz had to leave the field, injured. In the end the match was not much of a contest but it never stopped being an occasion.
At twenty past ten, almost exactly 12 hours after the attack in London, Edgbaston fell quiet in a minute’s silence. It was the only moment between dawn and dusk in which the streets around the ground were not loud with the sound of screams, shouts, whistles, horns and drums. There was succour to be found in the crowd, in their determination to go on with the frivolous business of singing, dancing and cheering to celebrate sixes and wickets. It was the largest attendance they have ever had for a one-day game at Edgbaston, just under 25,000 people altogether, a 50-50 mix, part Pakistani, part Indian, all proudly British. The fixture, which in the past has often split supporters apart, served to bring everyone a little closer together.
