PAKISTAN: Less than two years after coming close to war, Pakistan and India are presently joined in a month-long battle on the cricket pitch, hoping the move will bolster the fledgling peace process between the nuclear rivals.
The teams - the Indians in blue and the Pakistanis in green - will for the second time after the weekend try and outmanoeuvre, outflank, outwit and outplay each other today at a packed stadium in the garrison town of Rawalpindi adjoining Pakistan's capital Islamabad.
Their first clash - which India won by a whisker on Saturday - was at a stadium in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, amid the tightest security seen there in recent times.
Over 500 million people remained glued to their television sets on either side of the border for the eight-hour match.
During this period all movement across both countries ceased as people avidly followed the match, which went right to the wire with the hosts putting up an amazing performance.
Normally chaotic streets in India's capital New Delhi were deserted during the nail-biting match. After the match, the streets erupted in a frenzy of firecrackers and noisy bands.
"It was the mother of all battles," textile designer Rita Paul said. "I would not have missed it for anything," she added.
The cricket series has become a metaphor for countries which take their rivalry to dangerously apocalyptic and ridiculously childish levels.
"It opens the floodgates of unprecedented people-to-people contact and bonhomie," leading Pakistani columnist Najam Sethi said. More than just cricket depends on it, he added.