Preamble: this is huge
Morning everyone and welcome to the World Cup match with the most superlatives around its neck. It’s the noisiest, niggliest, most intense, most watched game there can be, unless India and Pakistan meet again in the final, as they did two years ago, also on English turf. The last match I covered, England v West Indies 48 hours ago, was under-hyped. That’s not a problem today.
This is England, so we have to start by talking about the weather. According to the Met Office, there’s rain around but it’s not expected to be serious until lunchtime. We should get a game, albeit a truncated one.
Both teams want to win in the same way Arsenal want to beat Spurs, or a six-year-old wants a bigger slice of cake than her eight-year-old sister. But only one of the teams needs to win. India have started authoritatively, beating Australia, dropping a point only to the rain. Pakistan have started characteristically, listless one day (against West Indies), lethal the next (against England). Currently ninth out of ten, caught between Bangladesh and Afghanistan, they really need a victory today. In fact, they need it so badly they’ve gone to the trouble of electing a World Cup-winning captain as their prime minister.
The form guide is interesting. In all their one-day international meetings, Pakistan are well ahead, by 73 wins to 54. But in the World Cup, where they have met six times, it’s 6-0 to India. And the Indians may still be smarting from the 2017 Champions Trophy, when they won the group match easily, only to be humbled in the final. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a game to savour. It begins, clouds permitting, at 10.30am BST, in about an hour.
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