India Wins: Beats Pakistan in World Cup Cricket Collision

March 30, 2011 — -- Twenty percent of the planet can go back to what they were doing, now.

India has beaten Pakistan in the "thrilla in Mohali" (I know, it doesn't quite work like the original), the 2011 semi-final of the Cricket World Cup.

About 1.4 billion people live in the two countries, and hundreds of millions outside of South Asia were watching.

The match, as everyone in this part of the world has been tweeting and Facebooking about for nearly a week, is much more than an eight-hour sporting event. Serious sport, George Orwell once said, is "war without the shooting," as Time http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2062133,00.html) magazine's Omar Waraich noted -- and that is never more true than when India and Pakistan meet on the playing field.

The two countries that have fought three wars share culture, religion, history, even families -- and the love of the sport that the British left behind.

To help American readers understand what I'm talking about, consider this thought experiment:

Then, you will begin to understand what cricket means to South Asia.

Of course, this match wasn't even only about sport.

"Cricket diplomacy" is a 30-year-old phrase, but it is being practiced again. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his counterpart, Pakistani Prime Minster Yusuf Raza Gilani, to watch the match together.

They undoubtedly talked a lot about Pakistan's low run rate and a little bit about the major issues that still separate the two countries politically: Kashmir, water, terrorism.