Here is the picture of Indian team celebrating when India beat Pakistan in the 2013 World Cup Final!
And the video of the team and crowd celebrating the world cup!!
http://youtu.be/H31I9tNudTM?t=7m18s
Oh wait….. that was not the world cup final, it was a dead rubber in the bilateral 3 match series, after India had already lost the series at home!! It may seem like the entire team and fans have gone bonkers over this win, but that is just an illusion! This was not the world cup hence the win was meaningless! It was meaningless, IT WAS, IT WAS!!!
As Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib aptly said, “Dil ke bahlane ko Ghalib, ye khayal achha hai.”
We Kashmiris have a very intimate sense of meaning of India - Pakistan cricket encounters. While we want Pakistan to win just as much (if not more) as most Pakistanis, most Kashmiris want India to loose significantly more than average Pakistanis. So for us the sense of success and failure is even more elevated in these encounters.
Most cricket observers would agree that every India - Pakistan encounter is a mental trophy itself, most times more so than actual physical trophies.
If you have watched most of India - Pakistan LOI encounters, you would likely agree that the most intense match ever played between the two sides was the Austral-Asia Cup final in 1986. Not because it was a cup final, but because it was an India - Pakistan encounter that evolved to be one of the best ODIs ever played. It also helped that it was in an environment of balanced fan base in Sharjah which made the encounter not only a competition of the players but fans as well. To me this remains by far the greatest match ever played between India and Pakistan.
The match caused a lasting effect which is unparalleled in sport. It resulted in a psychological barrier for Indian cricket, which they were not able to surmount for years. Constant losses to Pakistan, in what people in denial term as JAMODIs, caused India to stop playing Pakistan during Pakistan’s strongest era in the 90s!
When asked why India was playing Pakistan in other sports but not in cricket, the then Indian sports minister said on national TV that losing to Pakistan in Cricket causes the nation's psyche to be damaged!
So if only World Cup encounters mattered why would India’s psyche be damaged? If these were JAMODIs then why so serious? Why the dead rubber win frenzy which makes it seem like this team has just won the world cup ... of football, against a combined team of Pele, Maradona, Zidane, Messi, Bekenbauer, etc.... at their peak!!?
Even if you consider some of the world cup matches to be more meaningful, personally I would consider only two wins to be significant 1996 and 2011. 2003 was an aging Pakistan team with no chance of success. 1992 and 1999 were years when Pakistan won and made the final so it is ridiculous to associate some extra value to India’s wins beyond a typical India - Pakistan encounter!
T20 in general is devalued to the extent that I would expect more fans of the game to barely treat it as cricket. It is an India - Pakistan encounter so we still want our teams to win, but it does not stick. The most ‘significant’ T20 loss for Pakistan, if you can call it that, in 2007 final, had this impression on me. “Hmmnn that was silly shot to hand India the victory, I wonder if Misbah was trying to demonstrate his range of shots. Anyways whats for dinner.” End of story. T20 has no soul, no lasting feeling that stays with you for days, even months and years. If you want to call something meaningless, IMO you would have a winner with T20 in general.
BTW, here are a couple of examples (these both are in India) of how Kashmiris celebrated all of those 72 wins:
http://youtu.be/4P73Jo9hjRs
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202295880650710&set=vb.1002083137&type=2&theater
Don't tell these guys or your own players that these matches were meaningless, because they will just laugh at you, tell you to watch some more cricket and to stop deluding yourself.
When Pakistan beats India whether it is Maindad, Malik, Waseem, Ijaz, Saeed, or Afridi, it is the epitome of cricket passion and joy. It is the converse when we lose. You can add very little on top of that because of an occasion.
After all is said and done, it remains:
Pak 72 - India 50!