India wins and India wins again

PL watches India beat Australia and Pakistan on the same night

India beat Australia on Sunday at the SCG in a T20 match that almost passed under the radar. There may be many reasons for this, not least of which is the timing, the format, and the fact that the women’s game, despite impressive growth does not attract the same attention as the men’s.

India’s impending match against Pakistan in Sri Lanka had consumed most of the oxygen in the room.

In such circumstances, a crowd of around 10,000 at the venue was respectable for a game between two of the best and most popular teams in the sport. It’s a big ask to get anybody out of the house when Monday threatens, and we are all back at work, school, rehearsals, whatever. Ratings were unavailable at the time of typing, but you can safely assume no records were threatened (it would be great if they were). A rain interruption in the second innings and a modest performance by the home team batting in the first would not have helped encourage eyeballs.

The showers arrived before the sixth over of India’s innings could be completed, but by that time the visitors were clearly in the ascendancy and deserved winners.

After midnight at home, India took on Pakistan in a match that had been preceded by the sort of international conflict, crisis negotiations, posturing and compromise that mirror the military-political conflict that has bedevilled the divided nations since Partition.

Millions were banked, multiple millions watched, passions were inflamed, although nowhere near the levels they had in the disheartening politics that consumed and threatened cricket’s house of cards in the past month.

How many stayed up or tuned in just to see how the unfortunate posturing before the match played itself within the confines of the contest?