By: Pranaya Chakraborty
The Indian Student Federation and the Pakistan Student Association collaboratively hosted a screening of the ICC Champions Trophy cricket tournament between rival cricketing nations India and Pakistan in the Images Theatre on Burnaby campus last weekend. The organizers believe it was the biggest screening of the cricket match in Metro Vancouver.
As the biggest rivalry in cricket, the event did not fail to attract viewers from all around the city. Fans of both teams poured in to watch the most anticipated match of the tournament. Hundreds of people showed up to watch the match, some from as far as Surrey and Richmond, to witness the spectacle.
“Our goal with events like these is to promote multiculturalism within the SFU community, as many people here are international students and we hope that cross-cultural interaction will allow them to integrate into this environment better,” said Arsalan Anwar, the president of the Pakistan Student Association.
The event started at 2:30 a.m. local time and didn’t end until almost noon. It also provided a late dinner for spectators, many of whom were fasting for Ramadan.
“As both the [Indian Student Federation] and [the Pakistan Student Association] now have new board teams, this event is the perfect way to start off our summer as far as our clubs are concerned. And seeing the number of people that showed up, I’d say this event is a great success,” said Aayush Arora, the president of the Indian Student Federation.
The crowd grew as the match progressed with spectators still coming in until 4:00 a.m. that morning. Such passion for the game is seldom seen as Mirza Fahad, a Pakistan Student Association executive noted, “It’s the biggest rivalry in cricket.”
Indeed, the facts do justice to such a claim as both India and Pakistan, former World Champions, have faced each other numerous in all three formats of international cricket and each time they’ve met, they’ve never failed to entertain.
Although Pakistan leads in the total number of One-Day International tournament victories with a tally of 72 victories for 52 defeats, India has certainly shown consistency in international tournaments over their archrivals by winning all of their previous World Cup encounters.
In the end, India amassed a score of 319 runs for three wickets as Pakistan fell 124 runs short of their target, scoring 164 runs for the loss of nine wickets. The target for the match had to be readjusted to 289 runs due to the rain.
Even as India gained their fifty-second victory over Pakistan, spectators from both sides congratulated each other on a well-played game. Though divided by borders, the game united the spectators in support of their teams.
