IND - PAK Cricket Rivalry

The India–Pakistan cricket rivalry is one of the most intense sports rivalries in the world. The tense relations between the two nations, resulting from bitter diplomatic relationships and conflict that originated during the Partition of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947, the Indo-Pakistani Wars, and the Kashmir conflict, laid the foundations for the emergence of an intense sporting rivalry between the two nations who had shared a common cricketing heritage. The Partition of British India in 1947 that led to the creation of independent Indian and Pakistani states was characterised by bloody conflict between ethnic groups that left one million people dead and led to the mass migration of an estimated ten million people to the nation of their choice. The legacy of Partition and subsequent territorial disputes have helped create intense rivalries in field hockey, association football and especially in cricket, which had been developed during British colonial rule and is the most popular sport in both nations.