Paksitani fans miss Eden game

Only a handful of Pakistani supporters with their national flag cheered the visitors.

A Pakistan fan, Mohammad Bashir, who lives in Chicago, said, "It is so exciting to be here at the Edens where our team has always done well. Cricket should not be made a victim of political conflicts."

While a Pakistani journalist Samar Abbas, who came from Islamabad to cover the series, said it was good to see his team getting some support here.

"I am very happy to find that despite no fans coming from Pakistan, our team has a lot of support here to cheer up our players," he said.

The CAB has sold only 3500 tickets to the general public as rest of seats are either given as complimentary or being made available to associated clubs.

A crowd of more than 65,000 enthusiastically cheered the teams as they celebrated the resumption of bilateral cricketing ties between the two nations.

Fans, however, said that they missed the presence of Sachin Tendulkar, who announced his retirement from ODI cricket recently.

"How can I imagine a cricket match without Sachin? It is really difficult to accept the hard reality," a 22-year-old college student Amitabh Banerjee who missed his classes for this match, said.

The two-match T20 and three-match ODI series between India and Pakistan has been squeezed in between India's ongoing full series against the England cricket team, which has taken a break for Christmas and New Year.