John Riordan: Ticking India vs Pakistan off the bucket list at a popup stadium in New York

This was a record-breaking attendance for a cricket match on American soil. The local radio and newspapers focused on that undeniable fact on Monday without fully understanding the rules, the rivalry, the history or anything about why neighbours of the soon-to-be-disappeared arena could face such inconvenience to their regular lives.

Ambitious plans for the US to jointly host in a supporting role with the West Indies were clearly aimed at cracking an untapped and extensive market.

And maybe it was a way of showing potential broadcasters and sponsors that there were large swathes of dedicated expats as well as first and second generation cricket fans who were waiting impatiently to be snapped up from across the 50 states.

We met young Indian parents who had driven from Pittsburgh with their two young boys. And a retired Indian couple who had flown in from Seattle and were keen to find a match for their son. The ABC producer sat alone next to us lived the next town over.

There were Pakistani and Indian celebrities and influencers creating a stir, a retired Lebanese porn star who thrives off of making a stir in her second act and, in one of my favourite moments of the day, I got a little starstruck when we bumped into Zarna Garg, a brilliant Indian comedian who has cornered the market in holding a playful mirror up to her fellow Indian parents and the offspring who disappoint them so much.

Of course, this is still cricket and America has enough on its hands with the slow and sad demise of baseball.

Local officials in The Bronx firmly rejected the International Cricket Council’s initial proposal to locate a few T20 World Cup group stage games at the wide expanse of Van Cortland Park, right by Gaelic Park.

So the next option took them east of New York City to a small enclave of cricket ovals occupied solely by expats from South Asia and the Caribbean.

Eisenhower Park became Eisenhower Stadium, a hastily though elaborately assembled venue which felt rickety and ran out of food and cold beer but, somehow, held the whole thing together.

The greater concern for the cricket aficionados was the slow outfield which occasionally halted somewhat certain fours.

The locals in and around the pleasant suburban village of Westbury were as bemused by this slightly misshapen collection of nuts and bolts as the superstar Indians and Pakistanis sent to play there, not to mention the befuddled event volunteers who weren’t adequately prepared for the urgency of the respective fans to get through the heavy security.

For weeks, the fervently anticipated clash of India and Pakistan was being treated as a top tier security threat. I, too, bought into that hype. Would they segregate the fans? Would there be bomb threats?

Ultimately, the heavily armed police dotted around the security barriers ended up as bored observers. Local Nassau County police dropped their guard and waved happily to shuttle buses making the short journey from the train station to the stadium. And this will sound familiar: the only times I saw them spring into action was when they were asked for photos and selfies with the delighted fans.

As the slog to get inside continued, my phone flashed with an alert of a delay at the Munster final. The coincidence didn’t end there because a couple of hours later, when the momentum of the match itself began to shift back and forth between the most significant enemies this sport has to offer, it struck me that there was never a need to separate the fans themselves. The GAA does not, as it turns out, lay claim to being the only example of happy, mingling supporters.

India, admittedly, outnumbered the Pakistanis in the stands by maybe four to one but when the latter tore into the India batting order during the early stages, the elation was deafening. Still stung by their shocking loss to the US, Pakistan are facing a slightly uphill battle which might not bode well for Ireland on Sunday.

My sporting bucket list has always had India v Pakistan on it. Of course, I’d love it to be Eden Gardens or Hyderabad but when these tickets landed out of nowhere the night before the game, I was delighted to change my Sunday plans around.

And I had already experienced the commute once, just days prior when Ireland lost heavily to India.

That journey could not have gone much worse. Tragically, our Long Island Railroad train hit and killed somebody who had made their way onto the tracks.

Without wanting to make light of the incident, the stalling of the train led to an hour and a half of pleasantries with the Indian passengers who significantly outnumbered us few Irish.

We watched the Irish wickets tumble on a phone and they pleaded with us to put up a challenge so that they could at least get to see India bat.

I left feeling a little hollow but my second World Cup experience more than made up for the damp squib of Ireland’s collapse. Over the tannoy as we waited interminably to get in, the American public address announcer filled the time unnecessarily by letting everyone know that this rivalry we were about to witness was bigger than anything the Yankees and Red Sox could offer.

Bigger yes but infinitely more jovial. India recovered from their mini-collapse and eventually wore the Pakistani attack down, offering us the dream ending of an exciting enough win to send both sets of fans home as happy as they could be.

So much for that security threat. If it wasn’t for the raised voices caused by the revelation that the samosas had meat in them, the day would have been as flawless as you could expect from a pop-up showdown of such an enormous scale.

And in spite of the logistical nightmares, we were all the better for having experienced it.