It is unlikely to get much mainstream exposure in the United States, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of people across the 50 states tuning into what is likely to be one of the most-watched, if not the most-watched, global sporting events of 2017. Renewing a sporting rivalry that puts almost all others in the shade, India will take on its neighbor Pakistan Sunday in the final of cricket’s ICC Champions Trophy, a scaled-down, elites-only version of the World Cup.
To get a scale of just how big the occasion is, when the two teams met in the 2015 World Cup, in what was just a preliminary game, an estimated worldwide audience of one billion people tuned in. This time a trophy will be on the line.
India and Pakistan rarely compete at cricket, the game which dominates both the sporting and cultural landscape in both countries. That has been the scenario since heated political tensions between the two were dramatically exacerbated by the Mumbai attacks in 2008. The attacks were carried out and orchestrated by Pakistanis, who India accused the Pakistan state of supporting and later shielding.
Cricketing relations were soon cut and ever since the two teams have met only sporadically, almost exclusively when they are compelled to face off in major tournaments.
In recent months, relations have taken a further downward turn as a result of frequent clashes over the Line of Control in the contested region of Kashmir. During that time, Pakistani actors have been banned from Bollywood, while Indian films were forbidden from being shown in Pakistan. Cricket is now one of the few vehicles that bring people of the two countries together, albeit there will be little togetherness on show in the heart of the battle in Sunday’s final at London’s Oval cricket ground.
The sport’s governing body has made a recent push to try to grow the game in the U.S. In 2015, a group of retired legends played three matches across the country, in New York City, Houston and Los Angeles, with each game drawing over 20,000 fans. And when India and Pakistan met in last year's World Cup for the shortened 20-over version of the game, the average audience in the U.S. was a non-too-shabby 1.4 million.
