EAST MEADOW, N.Y. – Long Islanders will be on the move this weekend. There will be First Communion parties to prepare for, graduation ceremonies to attend, and the shuttling of young’uns to their Little League and soccer games.
But on Sunday, Long Island’s suburban bustle is about to meet its match. And all it took was a cricket match that is expected to be watched by a half billion people around the world.
Three days after the United States beat Pakistan in perhaps the biggest upset in the history of the game, India will take on Pakistan in the group stages of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) T20 World Cup.
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It’s a highly anticipated matchup of cricket royalty. General admission tickets, starting at $300, are long gone, and as of Saturday morning, tickets on the secondary market were going for between $750 and five figures.
The geopolitical situation between India and Pakistan is so tense that Pakistani players are barred from participating in the Indian Premier League and the two countries do not play each other except in ICC events. Their last meeting took place in 2023 at the ICC World Cup in India.
India and Pakistan share a complex and at times bloody history that includes four different wars since 1947. The two nations claim parts of a disputed border in the Kashmir region of the Indian Subcontinent and have frequently fought over it.
All of the historical baggage brings the cricketing world to a standstill anytime India and Pakistan play, which makes Sunday’s venue in the middle of a suburban park on Long Island all the more fascinating.
For its entire history until this week – when Sri Lanka and Bangladesh christened the newly constructed 34,000-seat modular cricket stadium – Eisenhower Park was known as an expansive bit of suburban paradise, home to three golf courses, multiple sporting fields, tennis courts, an aquatics center and an ice hockey facility.
It was a place for picnics and kites.
From this point forward, however, it is going to be known as the place where India played Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup.
“I heard it's going to be crazy,” one Long Islander said, sounding as if he was talking about an end-of-the-school-year party.
He isn’t alone. Everyone living on Long Island, which is an ocean away from the closest cricket-playing country in either direction, has heard the same thing. Some with anticipation, others with apprehension.
Although it is larger than Central Park in Manhattan, Eisenhower is not set up to host 34,000 cricket fans at one time. The park is sandwiched between two vital throughways. There’s a general lack of confidence that the roads going in and out will remain uncongested during the tournament, especially during Sunday’s mega match.
Long Islanders, for the most part, have completely underestimated the magnitude of the game, while India, Pakistan and the rest of the cricketing world have wondered how that could possibly be.
It's kind of like putting the Super Bowl in the middle of Mongolia.
On Sunday morning, the sporting world will see something unprecedented when India takes on Pakistan in a cricket match in a pop-up stadium next to a miniature golf course in the middle of a community park on Long Island.
And while the game is taking place on its shores, most Long Islanders will be at the beach or at Home Depot. And they'll be complaining about the traffic.
