Time to take back good memories

If you were in Birmingham last Sunday, you couldn't couldn't be blamed for thinking you were in Lahore or Delhi, writes Kadambari Murali.

On Sunday evening, if you were in Birmingham, you couldn't have missed the boisterous celebrations on the roads. And you couldn't be blamed for thinking you were in Lahore or Delhi, not Birmingham.

Young men in flashy cars were whooping with bacchanalian fervour, Indi-pop was blaring from car stereos, Asian faces were hugging each other with unaffected exuberance and Hindi (Urdu)-Punjabi was the language of the day.

Maybe not Delhi though, because the streets of Edgbaston were full of Pakistani flags, draped over shoulders, worn like capes, thrown over cars and flung in the air in joyous abandon.

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Pakistan had beaten India and the battle for Birmingham had just become one large party. The street just outside the cricket ground in this Pakistani-dominated area of town was closed to cars but across and down the road, there were jams galore.