It was the encounter with India and Pakistan at the 2019 World Cup and I was in the atmosphere a few days before the game and built the game. Curry Mile, the Desi Hub in Manchester, was all lifted. New items on the menu in almost all restaurants for several events with Cricket stars for the thousands that had entered the city, this was a Manchester who had been completely asian. And most fans were flown in from India or Pakistan or the huge South Asian diasporas in the USA and Canada.
Interestingly, some of these trips were put together by Indian and Pakistani friends who worked in the diaspora. For them it was about experiencing the World Cup together and celebrating sport in a way for which only sport makes space. In fact, I remember that my camera baperson felt uncomfortable in the morning of the game and when I wanted to go live on TV, he began to hand over. A group of Pakistani fans who were on the way to the stadium asked whether things were under control. While it turned out that it was a doctor and even passed on a medication to feel better, two of them kept my equipment that made the show easier.
Here I said Pakistan has little chance on Indian television and here they were Pakistani fans who held my camera who allowed me to say it! We then posed for photos and everything was done in the spirit of the camaraderie and the friendly joke. There was no Jingoism and the little Tete-A-Tet ended with a Samosa party, thanks to one of them that took out delicious home Samosa.
Between 2005 and 2015 there would be only a handful of Indians at global sporting events. No longer. Rather, there were thousands like me in England in 2019 and now things have grown even bigger. On February 23, Dubai will serve as an index for how large sports tourism is as a industry in India.
“Fans no longer only travel to see a match. It is now a well -curated trip. You will sit the game right behind the Bowler arm, visit a gala evening dinner before playing with the best cricket players in the world and finally want the Indian meal at the event locations are packed for you, ”says Raghav Gupta Head of Fanatic Sports.
To be honest, things have changed here in recent years. While Adelaide was also a blue sea in 2015 during the World Cup in front of Pakistan's Indian Pakistan game, most fans were happy to sleep on Beanbags at the airport or only behave with locals. Sports tourism in the sense in which we understand it made it only its presence in India. In England in 2019, things were deeply different. And Come India against Pakistan on February 23, Dubai will be a blue sea in which Indian fans from all over the world are dropping. These fans now come from all layers of society and it is no longer the fief of Hnis as before. In a way, it has democratized sport like never before, which makes it a real melting pot of cultures.
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