The “serious crisis” after India against Pakistan in 1989 in New York

India's Kapil Dev and Pakistan's Imran Khan both played in the 1989 match in New York. [Getty Images]

It was nearly half past midnight on a freezing night at New York's Downing Stadium in May 1989 when the excited, chattering crowd finally dispersed.

The projectors in the Randalls Island room, repaired and used for the first time in years, were still on, but you could still see the Manhattan skyscrapers twinkling in the distance.

This is where Jesse Owens trained and Pelé made his debut for the New York Cosmos. Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix and Ray Charles have all performed there.

The Downing Stadium was also the venue for the first meeting in the Americas between India and Pakistan.

Forget whoever was playing at Carnegie Hall or Broadway that night, this was the place to be if you were a cricket fan in the Big Apple.

Yet much of what happened has been forgotten.

It was actually the first of a series of three exhibition matches. Fans had gathered, many after work, to attend a 40-person party featuring some stellar names.

Pakistan were led by Imran Khan and had many of the cornered Tigers who would go on to win the World Cup in 1992 alongside them, including Javed Miandad, Saleem Malik and Mushtaq Ahmed.

Dilip Vengsarkar captained an Indian team comprising Mohammad Azharuddin, Kapil Dev and Sanjay Manjrekar.

Indian all-rounder Ravi Shastri helped facilitate the matches against Pakistan, as well as an earlier match against the West Indies.

In many ways we were the pioneers in coming to the United States, Shastri told BBC Sport.

To do something like that at the time was really quite a brave thing. After that, there were games throughout the 1990s in different parts of the United States.

“We always wanted to beat them”

A crowd of 15,000 turned out to the stadium that evening in New York.

Many came from the historic South Asian communities of Jackson Heights, Queens, who had begun emigrating to the United States since Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Immigration Act.

Even though it was an exhibition match, we still wanted to beat them, recalls former Pakistan captain Ramiz Raja.

But there was never any problem between the players. Not a solution. We have the same culture and we eat the same things.

There was no proper scoreboard at Downing Stadium, and those sitting in the stands were sometimes unaware of who was actually batting and playing.

The scorers were amateurs so there were a lot of mistakes.

Television coverage of cricket in the United States in the 1980s was limited, so swathes of South Asian expats didn't know what their heroes actually looked like in the flesh.

That didn't matter to those in attendance who beat drums, waved flags and occasionally invaded the field.

Saleems 53 helped Pakistan post 162 on the wicket but India emerged victorious.

Robin Singh top-scored for India with 47 while Vengsarkar hit the winning runs, with three balls to spare, bowling Mushtaq for a towering six.

However, Pakistan leveled the series in Toronto, at the home of the Blue Jays, after Imrans' brilliant 91 did not help them chase down 222.

Pakistan then completed a four-wicket victory in Los Angeles thanks to Ramiz's 47 to win the inaugural North American Cup.

“Cricket’s biggest crisis”

Players participating in the India-Pakistan trilogy in the United States pocketed $2,000 each for their participation.

It was an era in cricket when players of the game often found it difficult to earn much money from the game.

During previous trips to the United States at that time, Indian players stayed in the homes of expatriate families.

Indeed, it was not uncommon for players to be forced to rub their own white clothes with bleach to clean them between matches.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had allowed players to visit the United States on “holidays” but banned them from playing cricket.

India had traveled to the United States and Canada after a grueling tour of the West Indies where they lost a four-match Test series 3-0 and suffered a 5-0 whitewash in the ODIs, which apparently irritated the BCCI.

Upon their return to India, the board banned Vengsarkar, Dev, Shastri, Azharuddin, Kiran More and Arun Lal for a year, with the rest of the Indian players involved fined.

It was headline news and Indian cricket writer R Mohan called it “the country's most serious cricket crisis at the time”.

However, following protests, a media campaign and a three-month legal battle, the decision was overturned.

We had some problems after playing those matches in the United States, Shastri said with a laugh.

We were supposed to be banned for a year but it didn't happen like that. So all's well, it ends well.

On the other hand, the Pakistani players did not face any problems.

Imran was 10 at the time, Ramiz said. He was the board, he was the chairman of selectors, he was the captain so we had no problem playing in the United States.

On Sunday at 3:30 p.m. BST, in a dazzling 32,000-seat stadium in New York costing $32 million, the two countries will play out the final episode of their rivalry on American soil.

I remember in 1989 there were six or seven Americans at the game, Ramiz added. They were all security guards!

The India-Pakistan contest in New York in 2024 is expected to feature a few more.

You can follow the match with live TMS commentary on BBC Sounds from 3:15 p.m. BST and text updates on the BBC Sport website and app.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/gravest-crisis-1989s-india-v-063905769.html The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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