Late last week, after meeting many pending deadlines and tackling the deluge of IPL information, there came this most delightful piece of news. That the draft schedule for ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in Pakistan had scheduled all India matches and the final in Lahore.

No offence to Karachiwallas - some of my best cricket friends are Karachiwallas - and understand their peeved feelings. I have no bias towards Lahore as against Karachi - how silly - even if some of my other best cricket friends are Lahoris.

What that news of ICC Champions Trophy 2025 at Lahore did was to trigger time-travel. As in I saw myself at the Wagah-Attari border, crossing waiting in a queue (ladies, of course) to get past immigration officials, armed soldiers and gates.

Very strong whiffs you may say of the best kind of khayaali pulao.

As someone who tasted the real deal twice nearly 20 years ago, the fact that it has been 17 years since an Indian team last visited Pakistan is downright unfair. It’s been 16 years since Indian fans could take the trip with relative ease. (Yes, this is being written with full awareness and embarrassment over the deliberate difficulties created for overseas fans - and would you believe it, teams - around the ICC Men’s World Cup 2023 hosted by my country) That the Indian team will be based in single location for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, which is the most easily accessible and economical for Indians is logical and welcoming. But why does it really matter over and above other India-Pakistan stuff?

Because, cricket fans are a different species.

Other Indo-Pak social groups that do engage with each other - Track Two travellers, business folk, artists - don’t spend their time obsessing over results, form, technique, rivalries, match-ups, is X better than Y or working out all-dream XIs separate / combined.

India and Pakistan cricket operate on such divergent tracks these days that whenever there’s a game, the hype merchants take over the cricket conversations. ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in Lahore is a chance for fans from both countries to experience the conversations, arguments and bantering in person.

Also, frankly several generations of Indian fans are sick of listening to us fogies say that the best cricket tour we ever went on was Pakistan 2004. The Tests were taking place after 15 years, the ODIs after seven making every experience novel, every sight unique.

ICC Champions Trophy 2025 for India fans in Lahore could be a new generation’s discovery of a lifetime. Along with everything else around the cricket, the cricket’s also the thing. Or as my lawyer friend Aarti said to me: “One of the biggest dreams of an Indian cricket fan would be to watch India win in Pakistan.” And vice versa.

That whole Pakistani fast bowling versus Indian batting has been refashioned - or has it?

What would today’s Indian cricketers think about playing in Pakistan?

“Just another match” is a repeat cliché, but stories of old tours would have reached them. Not just MS

Dhoni’s haircut advice from Musharraf. Only Rohit Sharma, not even 20 ODIs old at the time, is left from that Asia Cup 2008 team which was held entirely in Karachi.

Plus, why shouldn’t Pakistani cricket fans see the Indian greats of their generation - Rohit, Virat Kohli,

Jasprit Bumrah - live? Or the madness that is Suryakumar Yadav’s batting geometry and Kuldeep

Yadav’s eye-goggling guile?

At the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, Indian fans got their opportunity in several cities and for the most part, showed their love.

In Bengaluru, where I now live, Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi were the star attractions, but

Fakhar Zaman brought the house down. The stands were about 75 percent full for both matches against Australia and New Zealand, and the noise as Fakhar chomped into the Kiwis was deafening. There were rip-off Pakistan team shirts being sold almost furtively on the pavement outside the

Chinnaswamy Stadium (at a higher price than the rest, it must be noted). Kids wore “Babar” on their backs with glee and they’re now collectibles.

Let’s leave the politics aside. Ha ha and all that, but what’s not to dream.

Outside of broadcast media’s hyper-marketing - I don’t know about yours but ours is nauseating - and social media bilge, India-Pakistan cricket is our handshake. Our as in not the diaspora with their easy-access passports or dollar/sterling salaries.

Who can turn up in numbers at every match in every other corner of the globe. Love you guys and your Pasoori dancing, but hey, the Lahore matches in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 are about us proles on both sides. It’s an invitation to visit home.

Already it is February 2025, and me and my friends are there. At the Wagah-Attari border with mithai boxes and oranges, (obviously, mandarins the easily peelable variety) in our luggage. Waiting for the gates to open.

Sharda Ugra lives in Bengaluru and has spent three decades reporting on cricket for leading newspapers, tabloids, magazines and websites. She has authored several books on cricket and can be contacted at sharda.ugra@outlook.com