Cricket matches are about to resume and I’m talking to Al, a 50-year-old man who grew up in India and has just started sending photos of clouds to his friends.
He’s been living here in the US for 20 years, but friends he grew up with in Chennai keep texting him before the match even begins, saying there were fears the rain could cancel the match.
“They would ask me, ‘What’s the weather like?'” he says. “‘Can you look at the sky and see if the clouds are clearing?’ I literally had to take pictures of the sky clearing and send them.”
“I said, ‘Give me 10 minutes. I spoke to the weather gods. They promised me it would be sunny.’ It’s that crazy.”
After two postponements, God has finally provided the gift. The sun is out. The world’s largest international cricket match is being played on Long Island, and a crowd of first and second generation Americans, clad in the blue of India and the green of Pakistan, are ecstatic to be there.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Al told me. “Were you here when the national anthem was played? Did you feel it? Every grain of sand, every blade of grass, felt it.”
Background: They’re playing this match here as part of the T20 World Cup, a biennial tournament they co-host with the United States. T20 refers to the match format. One thing most people know about cricket is that a match takes five days, which is sometimes true. Most international matches are now played in the one-day format. T20 is an even shorter version intended to appeal to a larger audience, with each team having 20 overs, or sets of six balls.
Neelay and Baljit Bhatt, a couple who had flown in from Indianapolis to watch the match, spent most of the time answering questions before a question started to form in my mind: They are India fans, and the match didn’t start well.
Pakistan won the coin toss, eliciting cheers never heard at a coin toss in a football game, and batted first, a huge advantage on a wet field where the ball didn’t travel far. Then, after a rain interruption, Pakistan got Virat Kohli out for just four runs, which is about the same as striking out Mickey Mantle, but only if he hadn’t batted for the rest of the match.
Ahmad, a Pakistan fan in the row above me to the left, is yelling for Pakistan every two minutes until he loses his voice. He is 29 years old and originally from Queens, but has family in Lahore, India’s second-largest city near the Indian border.
“It means everything,” he says. “Now my cousins are sending me videos from Pakistan. They’re blocking streets and holding screenings all over the country. It’s being celebrated as a national holiday.”
Looks like Pakistan will have more to celebrate soon. Pakistan has only beaten India once in 16 World Cup matches, in regular format and T20, holding India to 119 runs and taking 10 wickets. I guess this shows that India has a huge advantage before batting. My Indian-American college roommate texted me saying his team needs to stick together. Things won’t get better when Pakistan starts batting.
Pakistan’s batsmen have given up 31 runs. They can easily catch 119. According to ESPN’s CricInfo, if Pakistan’s batting is consistent, India’s chances of winning are 1.98 percent. The crowd (mostly Indian fans) are going wild.
Then Jasprit Bumrah from India comes on and Baljit leans over and tells me he’s one of the best bowlers. Think Mariano Rivera. Think 1999 World Series. The crowd was rooting for him. I don’t know much about it, but I know Pakistan can’t bat against this guy. Pakistan can only get three in one over and two in the next. It’s a collapse.
Suddenly Pakistan need 32 with 21 balls to go. Then 26 from 16. We’re counting down like it’s New Year. The crowd is shouting Bumrah’s name every few minutes. 18 from six. 16 from three, then a boundary for four. 12 from two, which means two sixes. That’s the equivalent of a home run. The batsman hits it towards us in the east stand. No one can see it. It falls just short.
India will win. The final score is 119-113/7. I look to my left and Ahmad is gone. The Bhatt brothers ask to have their photograph taken with me and I reluctantly agree.
Speaking earlier in the day about her daughter, who spent much of the game playing on the family’s iPad, Baljit joked that she would have been more engrossed if the Fever had been playing. “She’s in the process of switching over right now,” she said.
For now, I feel like mine is done.
