The climax of the Cricket World Cup takes place before the final: More than a billion people watch the semi-finals between India and Pakistan on TV on Wednesday.
Heartbreaking scenes have been going on in Mohali, north India, for days. “Take my kidney, but give me a ticket,” a young man wrote his message on a cardboard sign. He is just one of several hundred cricket fans who besiege the city’s stadium in hopes of a ticket. Everyone wants to be there when the game of this year’s World Cup in one-day cricket starts on Wednesday – the semifinals between eternal rivals India and Pakistan.
The Cricket World Cup is one of the biggest sporting events in the world and has been held every four years (with one exception) since 1975. This year it will be hosted jointly by India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There were hardly any highlights in the preliminary round – apart from the victory of the blatant underdog Ireland against England. But the prospect of an Indian-Pakistani semi-final electrified the crowds in South Asia during the quarter-finals.
And the teams did not disappoint their fans: First, Pakistan clearly prevailed in a one-sided game against the West Indies – a selection of Caribbean countries. The next day India defeated the four-time world champion and defending champion Australia, who had recently often lagged behind his form.
“Cricket diplomacy” revived
No sooner had the long-awaited semi-final pairing been established than politics was infected by the euphoria. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart to watch the game with him in Mohali. Yousuf Raza Gilani accepted, and commentators in both countries immediately saw the neighbors’ “cricket diplomacy”, believed to be forgotten, revived.
The term goes back to 1987, when the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi invited Pakistan’s military ruler Zia ul-Haq to a test match between the two countries in Jaipur, India, despite considerable bilateral tensions. However, trips by the teams to the respective neighboring country were rare.
It was not until 2004, when formal peace talks began, that the second round of “cricket diplomacy” between the nuclear powers was ushered in. The Indians traveled to Pakistan twice for tournaments, and the Pakistanis came to India twice.
The sporting and political spring ended abruptly in November 2008 when extremists allegedly from Pakistan killed more than 160 people in a terror series in the Indian financial metropolis of Mumbai. The peace dialogue was suspended, relations were at rock bottom. The cricket teams met after Mumbai – but never in one of the domestic stadiums.
Diplomatically, both sides have recently come closer again and have held numerous talks. Observers do not expect the meeting of the heads of government in Mohali, however, to bring about a breakthrough for the resumption of the peace talks. But even the “friendly small talk” in the stadium must be rated positively, they say.
One billion TV viewers
India is an easy favorite on the pitch. The captain of the 1983 world champion, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, promised that his team would not let the hype in the area drive them crazy. Every game is focused on the match that around a billion people worldwide will watch in front of the television.
The Pakistanis, champions from 1992, had to fend off an unexpected ricochet from their own ranks on Monday. The interior minister threatened to have the game checked for possible manipulation in favor of India. The background to this is a scandal at the beginning of the year in which three Pakistani national players had postponed games against England on behalf of the betting mafia. The athletes were banned by the World Cricket Federation. In Pakistan, however, the statement by the minister caused indignation, whereupon he was forced to apologize to Captain Shahid Afridi.
Incidentally, New Zealand and Sri Lanka face each other in the second semi-final. The final will take place on Saturday in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium – and is already sold out.
