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Neil Mohindra and Anna Lalani had 30 minutes to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

The couple, in their early 20s, donned their nicest clothes and perched across from each other in a booth at a local sushi restaurant. After two years of dating, both Mohindra and Lalani knew something bigger was in store for the night: the Cricket World Cup.

At 9 p.m., Mohindra unbuttoned his dress shirt to reveal the blue India jersey he had worn underneath. Lalani pulled on a green Pakistan jersey with a half moon and star emblazoned on the front and a pair of green socks. They were a couple divided, cheering for rival teams during one of the biggest athletic competitions in the world.

“This isn’t just a sports game,” said Mohindra, a Rush University student from Naperville. “It’s political pride. Whoever walks out of that stadium a winner gets to stand a little taller. I was born in India, a country filled with passion for cricket. It gets in your blood.”

The Cricket World Cup is one of the most widely watched international sports tournaments in the world. According to the International Cricket Council, more than a billion people were expected to tune in to watch India play Pakistan. In comparison, about 114.4 million people watched Super Bowl XLIX.

“The world loves cricket,” said Faizan Seedat, 25, of Glendale Heights. Seedat is a Pakistan fan. “Both countries have a strong pride for their cricket teams. The fact that the game happened on Valentine’s Day added more ambience to the love-hate relationship between Pakistanis and Indians.”

Cricket is more than a sport for Chicagoans of Pakistani and Indian descent. It’s a vital part of identity and a link to home countries and cultures. Mohindra, who grew up in New Delhi, said both countries are paralyzed during big cricket games. Offices and schools shut down, and people cluster around TVs to cheer on their respective teams.

The game in Adelaide, Australia, on Saturday night was the sixth time that India, the defending World Cup champion, defeated Pakistan.

“There’s not a soul that doesn’t watch an India versus Pakistan game in either country,” said Fatir Khan, 22, of Orland Park. Khan grew up in Kirachi, Pakistan, and cheers for that country’s team. “We try to imitate that here. I’m doing the exact same things my cousins are doing right now in Pakistan. Even if you don’t watch cricket, you know what this game means.”

Originally a British game, cricket gained popularity in the Caribbean, Asia, New Zealand and Australia following colonization. The bat-and-ball sport is similar to baseball in that each team of 11 players takes turns batting to score runs while the other team fields. The game is played on a giant oval field with a rectangular pitch in the middle.

The World Cup has been played every four years since in 1975 when it began in London. The India-Pakistan arch rivalry formed earlier during British India’s partition. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh were carved out of the country in 1947. Decades of political turmoil and strife solidified the cricket competition.

“The day of the game, you are allowed to say anything and everything and get away with it,” said Noman Khan, 28, of Schaumburg, an India fan. “Pakistanis and Indians do not want to lose that game. They say that it doesn’t matter whether you win the World Cup or not, but you have to win this one game.”

Shops and restaurants along Devon Avenue, a historically South Asian area of Chicago, hang fluttering cricket flags and signs in the windows alongside daily special boards advertising cheap lamb korma and bihari kebab. Cricket watch parties, similar to Super Bowl parties, are hosted in homes and restaurants around the city.

Friends and family gather to eat and watch the rivalry unfold a world away on a flickering TV screen. Restaurants, like Ali’s BBQ on Devon Avenue, hosted all-night watch parties for the game, which started at 9:30 p.m. Saturday locally and ended at about 5 a.m. Sunday.

In Mohindra’s Near West Side apartment, India and Pakistan flags were thumbtacked to the walls. The living room was emptied and filled with mattresses and comforters for nearly 25 people to watch the all-night game projected onto the wall. A mix of Urdu, Hindi, English and shouts of frustration or enthusiasm, the common language, filled the room.

“Pakistan zindabad! Pakistan live forever!” someone yelled, starting a round of shouts and catcalls, which eventually dissolved into laughter.

“I have an exam on Tuesday, but I don’t even care,” Mohindra said around four hours into the game. “I can’t leave this. I was raised in India. This is in my blood and part of my livelihood.”

Zakaria Agha, vice president of the Pakistani Student Organization at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said it’s a way to feel part of something larger. Agha, who also attended Mohindra’s watch party, was born in Dubai and grew up in Pakistan.

“When something like this happens, you know that everyone is watching the same thing,” Agha said. “There’s a connection. You know that everyone is on that same boat as you for a moment. Cricket is one of the few things that they do in Asia that we can do here.”

Fans can be extremely superstitious, Khan said. His sister will cross her fingers or sit in one position for hours. His friends will wear red underwear and refuse to switch seating arrangements. But Khan said he doesn’t believe in any of it. He wore a blue India cricket jersey to support the team.

Local cricket stores saw an uptick in sales of T-shirts and other sporting gear leading up to Saturday’s game. Vineet Chopra, the owner of Aishi Sports in Des Plaines, said he ordered 200 special-edition jerseys for the event. All of them sold within a week.

In Naperville, Best Cricket Store owner Hashwani Abbas said the sales have been “unimaginable.”

Ten years ago, a young Umair Feroz, now 27, of Peterson Park, raced down Islamabad’s dusty side streets playing cricket with a tennis ball. It would ricochet off building walls and shop windows, thudding against each surface.

Later, Feroz’s father, a Pakistani diplomat, relocated the family to Chicago. Despite being more than 11,000 miles from his hometown, Feroz continued to play cricket. In 2012, he founded the Chicago Leopards Cricket Club with a few friends. Last season, the club was popular enough to form two 11-person teams, one youth and one senior team.

The India versus Pakistan game is just one match in a six-week tournament featuring the 14 best cricket teams in the world, of which the United States is not one. The final game will be March 29 in Melbourne.

Saturday’s game lasted more than eight hours, stretching to just before sunrise. Near the end, Lalani, a UIC student from Glenview who has family from Pakistan, was nestled against a cushion on the floor, fast asleep. Mohindra, rumpled and disheveled continued to watch the game intently, taking puffs of pan-flavored hookah from a bubbling pipe. As the game finally came to an end, he leaped to his feet.

“Hell yes!” Mohindra said, fist pumping as India was pronounced the victor. “We did it!”