The game is cricket, but the rivalry between India and Pakistan is much bigger

For much of its 67-year history, Pakistan has challenged India — only to come up short at best and humiliated at worst.

Sunday was no different, with Pakistan's cricket team continuing its losing streak against archrival India in the ICC World Cup.

Here in Karachi, a chaotic port city of about 22 million people, the streets were deserted on Sunday as residents huddled around televisions and projection screens to watch the opening-round match. Similar scenes played out in cities and villages across Pakistan, a rare moment of national unity in a country known for political and ethnic divisions.

"The people of Pakistan take this as a war and not a match," said Zahoor ul-Hussain, a 40-year-old professor, who watched the game — played in Australia — with his students. "The people of Pakistan don't care who wins the World Cup. They just want Pakistan to beat India."

During the second half of the seven-hour match, however, it became obvious that India had built up an insurmountable lead. And, just as in Pakistan's three live-fire wars with India, residents had to accept that there would be no victory celebrations.

"It's the history of Pakistan, so we were mentally prepared for the defeat," Ali Mohammad, 20, said as he watched the closing minutes of the match during work at a Karachi tire shop. "But I'll always love Pakistan, and it is not possible for India to sustain this forever."

Such comments represent the widespread belief among Pakistanis that it is only a matter of time before their country matches or surpasses India, be it on the sports field or the battlefield.

The two countries have a shared history, and since majority-Muslim Pakistan broke away from majority-Hindu India in 1947, Pakistan has tried its best to keep pace with India militarily, technologically and economically.

But the efforts have proved difficult for a country that has struggled to control Islamist extremism, corruption, and an exodus of wealth and talent. And Pakistan's decades long dispute with India over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir has only complicated efforts to bring stability to the region.

The two major wars Pakistan has fought with India over Kashmir ended in stalemate. India also decisively defeated Pakistan in a 1971 conflict that led to East Pakistan breaking away and forming Bangladesh.

Although Pakistan matched India by developing a nuclear weapon, India's army remains twice the size of Pakistan's. India also has swamped Pakistan in economic growth. India's $1.9 trillion gross domestic product is nearly 10 times that of Pakistan.

Yet cricket is the one thing that can make such differences seem, at least during game time, unimportant.

In 1987, the term "cricket diplomacy" gained popularity when Pakistan's then-military ruler, Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, made a surprise visit to India to watch a cricket match with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In 2005, then-President Pervez Musharraf visited India to watch a cricket match.

On Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to revive the tradition by calling Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to wish the Pakistani team good luck. But the goodwill was short lived. On Saturday, Sharif's government issued a terse statement accusing India of violating a long-standing cease-fire with unprovoked gunfire that killed a 60-year-old Pakistani civilian along the border.

Such allegations serve as a reminder that India-Pakistan cricket games can represent much more than just friendly competition.

"It's a cultural expression of hostility between the two countries and the emotion of losing to each other," said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences, located in Pakistan's second-largest city. "This is all very much rooted in historical opposites . . . . There is a blatant feeling we should not be humiliated by the other."

Since 1978, when cricketing ties between the nations resumed after a long break, Pakistan has had a stronger record against India in the one-day version of the game, winning 72 of 127 matches. And although Pakistan won the World Cup in 1992, India has beaten it every time the two have faced off in the tournament.

A win this year by the Pakistani team would have been a huge morale boost for a country ravaged by terrorist attacks, including a December massacre at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed about 150 students and teachers.

Worried about more attacks on schools, administrators at NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi told students that they could not hold a World Cup viewing party in the college courtyard.

Instead, 700 students locked themselves in the auditorium to watch the match, tooting horns and singing the national anthem whenever their team scored.

Despite the boisterous display of national pride, many students expressed hope that one day a cricket match between India and Pakistan would be just that — a cricket match.

Many students said their generation is evolving on attitudes toward India.

"We don't hate them, and there is more acceptance," said Aiman Ateeq, 21. "But when it comes to cricket, everything is totally different. It's like war to us."