Pakistan vs India, Just Cricket?

What else brings life to one-fifth of world’s population?  It doesn’t matter which team looks better on paper, which is in more form, which superstar is playing and what war is going in other parts of the world. Nothing matters most to 1400 million humans when it comes to a cricket match between India and Pakistan.

’96 QF still melts hearts of many and ’11 SF still increases the chest size across the border. For India, Tendulkar is larger than life, bigger than their team, but it’s not the case in India Pakistan clash. It’s bigger than Imran Khan and Kapil Dev, Wasim Waqar Saurav Dravid all look tiny when it comes to a match between these two arch rivals of sub-continent.

Pakistan has already qualified for the final of Asia Cup, finally after 12 years. Sunday’s match was considered to be one of two matches to be played between these two nations but an upset win of Bangladesh has put more life in the contest. Always remember, its first time two teams are meeting after very controversial semifinal of last year’s world cup.

On paper and this time on ground too, Pakistan looks better in bowling department and India is far superior in batting. So it definitely will be a high skill contest between bat and ball but India’s batting should be deal with aggression which is unlikely from Misbah’s captaincy. For Pakistan, equation is simple, win toss, bat first and score 300 runs and let their bowlers do the rest. Any chance of India batting first will definitely improve their chances of winning this match since Pakistanies are awful in chasing runs.

India would also like to bat first and maximize their chances to win the game and hence set another match with Pakistan in the final of this Asia cup.

Pakistan need to stop Gambhir, Kohli and Dhoni where as India only need to bowl within themselves and Pakistani batsmen are quite capable of giving opponent upper hand.

The streets will be empty, the TV rooms will be occupied, load shedding will be lifted and every single will be cherished and commented by 1400 million. On Sunday, either side of the border, no one will be thinking about poverty, lawlessness, war against terrorism and all. The sub-continent is yet again set to go numb for another day. 22 players will halt life of billions and surely we will see again in next day’s papers about number of people died through heart attack.

Tune in, this is India Pakistan Cricket, and this is not just cricket.