The Asian giants India and Pakistan face each other in a warm up match ahead of the T20 World Cup at the Oval on Wednesday, their first after the Mumbai attacks aftre which the latter was stripped of World Cup hosting rights.
The England and Wales Cricket Board have taken ‘extra’ measures for the security for the game and the London Metropolitan Police may have been asked to ‘be on the ball’, but for the people with backgrounds from both the nations, the game is just another match.
“I think there is this fear that the tension between the countries might just spill over on to the field, but if you ask me, it’s unfounded, the fear,” Siddharth Singh, a third-generation Brit Indian, was quoted in The Hindustan Times.
“Look, a British Asian’s outlook towards Pakistan is very, very different from that of someone born and brought up in India. For us, an attack in the sub-continent is just a five-minute news clip, it doesn’t affect our lives, like it does yours.
“We didn’t look at our Pakistani friends with hatred after 26/11, in fact, it was us Asians, as a whole, who are so often branded ‘terrorists’ by the rest of the world.”
So, was it the same feeling within the Pakistanis in London? A trip to Green Street, West Ham, and the answer was an emphatic yes.
“It is just a cricket match, nothing else,” said Kashif Ahmed, a British citizen of Pakistani origin.
“No one is condoning what happened in Lahore and Mumbai, but that doesn’t mean that you make Pakistan the pariah of world cricket.
Related posts:
- England are T20 Champions David Hussey’s determined innings of 59 leading Australia’s recovery for...
- Pak court indicts Lakhvi, six others in Mumbai attack case A Pakistani anti-terror court on Wednesday framed charges against LeT’s...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
