This is cinema.
These three words with a Marty Scorsese image are used for a lot of things these days, often frivolously, but the slow burn thriller that India and Pakistan played out at the Nassau County International Stadium on Sunday deserves that tag.
The ICC decided to bring the T20 World Cup to the USA, and like a 12-year-old who has only watched Home Alone and Friends, or aliens who are about to invade Earth, decided that their major destination of choice will be “New York”. This meant transplanting a game and its culture (Samosas at the snack counter!) into somewhere that could be passed off as NYC adjacent (because no one buys I Heart Nassau County hats) and setting up a whole show, a carnival or circus style, that would then taken down when the show left town. Resultantly, the stadium’s outfield (set up in 5 months, two of which were deep Eastern seaboard winter months) turned out to be a spongy run robbing nightmare, and its drop in pitches more challenging to figure out than the NY Times crossword.
The upshot? Low scoring games, which were skewed towards the side bowling first, not the greatest advertisement if you were trying to charm a new audience. But those are secondary matters compared to the fact that high ticket prices for the India games and an opaque ticketing process kept the experience out of reach for most fans – casual or otherwise, and that the marketing and events around promoting the games in NY seemingly only preached to the converted.
Good(natured) Fellas
I attended three games and there was very little at the stadium (or anywhere else I went in NYC except for the Fan Park) in terms of introducing the game to a new audience. Even the Commonwealth Games had places at the venue where you could try out skills, or learn basics. So, yes, like a limited run of Hamilton at some smaller city was unlikely by itself to establish musical theater there, the T20 World Cup games in NY were an interesting few shows, but the american frontier will need a lot more work. But for what it is worth, the barista at my hotel did know a big game was on, and asked me how long it would last; the Dodger fan I met in the lift (he had come in from LA to attend the games against the Yankees) politely enquired about what game I was headed to after I greeted him with “Good game last night!” (the Dodgers had beaten the Yankees 12-3).
You don’t need to tell that to the 34,000 odd who attended the big one on Sunday though. They had come from all around the East Coast (New York, Virginia, DC, Connecticut, New Jersey), the West Coast and Washington, and even Canada. I shared an Uber (another annoying bit was how inaccessible the stadium was by public transportation) with Rohit (not the Indian captain, just to be clear, I assume he took the team bus) who had come with his son Vikram from Calgary. Vikram plays soccer at school but loves watching Virat Kohli and his dad had watched Shikhar Dhawan’s famous test debut years ago in Mohali. This would be their first live game together. More importantly Rohit was here with his friend from Canada who is originally from Pakistan, and during the ride he calls him to assure that he is on the way, and will be there to provide some company and support, because in the stand apparently the Indian fans outnumber Pak fans 20:1. It was a sweet little moment of affirmation that while the hype may be huge, and expectations dwarfing every Manhattan skyscraper, the game was about both rivalry and of bonds. I was watching with a business acquaintance and her husband; they were missing their son’s soccer game to attend this, and ironically his main game is hockey (the ice variety), but both husband and wife are hopeless cricket tragics. The World Cup games here providing these possibilities and opportunities is something not to be sneezed at.
The crowd was colourful and amazing as ever, and as you would expect in a clash between these two sides. The kid who drove us on the golf cart from the car park to the shuttle said this is the craziest crowd he has seen all week, and who could blame him – there were mounted police for crowd control posted at the entrances, and desi crowd being desi crowd were taking photos with the horses. There was classic good natured banter all around, the famed Pak fans’ gallows humor was on show, and while because of tight security from the Nassau County police department they could not be played in the stands, the dhols were there too.
And just to not let you forget the geopolitical undercurrent of it all, there is a light plane flying around the stadium that says “Release Imran Khan”.
Pangs of New York
The game itself – one on which ICC had spent all its hype credits, and like every global cricket event, the one that, a bit like Times Square, which has nauseating levels of glitz and hype around it, and most people profess to hating that, but in reality are fascinated and cannot look away when there, became cynosure of all eyes, whether you like it or not – may not have been spectacular in the conventional sense, but it was a complex, thrilling, and human experience dotted with nuances usually missed in the crash bang world of T20. If Michael Bay directed the IPL, this was very much Marty Scorsese territory.
On a difficult track, Pakistan won the toss and brought both the noise and the fire, their pace bowling quartet delivering after a stunning loss against the USA – probably the biggest shock to involve Dallas since the revelation of Who Shot JR. The Indian batters struggled with overcast conditions and some rain around. The surroundings seemed appropriately cinematic. When Kohli fell early, India promoted Rishabh Pant to number 3, and he would end up playing a most unconventional knock, taking his chances and the luck powering him to a crucial 42. His pluck, charm, and sheer left field levels of chaos would make him fit right into the Scorsese universe.
On the other side Naseem Shah was breathing disciplined fire like a righteous cop, his fantastic spell a key reason that India batted only 19 overs and ended up with only 119. India’s men were left with the task to having to pull off their lowest ever defence, if they were to win. Pakistan seemed to be cruising in the chase, but like a lot of Scorsese movies, the plot developed, because he lets it breathe rather than forcing things to happen. Bumrah and Rohit Sharma both later mentioned how they went about the defence, by not seeking to be overtly aggressive to try and get wickets, but let the conditions and the discipline close in on Pakistan’s batters, and force them into making that fatal mistake. The zenith of that moment was Mohammed Rizwan going for a big shot against Bumrah who had just returned for his second spell and seeing his stumps broken. What happened in the moment was important but what had happened in the lead up to that even more so. Scorsese’s plots, and his language on film, often move that way, and when the release moment arrives, often everything else unravels (remember the food sequence in Goodfellas?) and a monumental reversal takes place. India’s win probability had fallen to less than 10% before that Rizwan hoick; it would be up to 90% by the time Arshdeep came to deliver the final over.
In between, once again in a classic Scorsese stamp, there were vital cameos that made the thriller what it was – whether it was a fine over from Axar Patel to Imad Wasim, or two superbly directed bouncers from Hardik Pandya, which accounted for the dangerous Fakhar Zaman and Shadab Khan, or even Mohammed Siraj who bowled a superb 18th over despite giving away a couple or extras. Bumrah is a virtuoso, but sometimes you need the right canvas to show those skills off, sort of like how Scorsese seems to bring the best out of DeNiro or DiCaprio. At Nassau County, on that tough wicket that produced what one could call the cricket equivalent of a pitcher’s duel, Bumrah used it expertly to shutout the Pakistan middle order, which then imploded. Only Naseem Shah threw a brave counterpunch right at the end but it is like Raging Bull Jake LaMotta’s final stand against Sugar Ray Robinson. It comes up short, and Naseem is in tears. The drama of the slow burn thriller crescendoes in those final couple of overs. The weather has gone from overcast to sunny now, much like the mood of the Indian fans from despair to delight, and New York has just produced a low scoring India – Pak world cup classic.
In the long run it may or may not have a seminal impact to what happens to cricket in the United States – the NYT is still saying India won 119-113 – but Scorsese himself would probably admit, this was cinema.
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