There was colour and life in such a unique audience. There was passion of life, an emotion for the occasion and a feeling for the game that came out in a resplendent way. Could this really be happening in England, a conservative land of Anglo-Saxons?

The roads around Old Trafford were full of flags and of people waving them or draped in them. If Norman Tebbit, the Tory MP who created a stir in English politics, were to visit Manchester, he would have known how wrong he was in calling for a loyalty test for Asian migrants to Britain who fail such a test with glee. Their hearts lie in their homelands.

For some, god is money. At least so far those who did a roaring trade in flags on the morning of the match. They had the Indian tricolour in one hand and the Pakistani green crescent and star in the other. Nationality was unimportant. All theyneeded was sales and it did not matter to them which flag was more popular.

The colour of green was all pervasive, the stewards in their luminescent green jackets adding to its predominance. There was no question that the Indian fans were outnumbered. The north of England is where most of the Pakistani emigres live and they descended on Old Trafford in droves on Monday night and on the morning of the match.

But when it came to the battle for who could be more noisy, there would have been a tie. The air horn worked out of a gas canister can be too loud and may suffer in comparison to the more melodious conches. But they do help make an absolute racket and the Asian armies had them aplenty.

Stewards had been advised to be careful about banners. No provocative ones were to be allowed lest they inflame the high passions already surrounding the big match of the World Cup. And the TV cameramen may have been told to concentrate more than the cricket than on the crowds who feel encouraged to put on frenzieddemonstrations for the benefit of the camera eye.

Old Trafford may have been an island of lively Asian passions but it was by no means a battle ground as the British media may have imagined.

The security searches were thorough but the rival fans were in a friendly mood as they wended their way to their seats. They greeted each other like old friends. It may take a few hours for the British brew to get to them.

The pace of Shoaib Akhtar and Wasim Akram was greeted vociferously. The Pakistani fans were on the ascendent. And when Sachin Tendulkar pulled Shoaib and Sadagopan Ramesh steered him and square drove Wasim Akram for fours, the Indian tricolour, used more often till then to keep out the cold, came quickly off the backs of fans and was waved around in huge numbers. Green was predominant when Abdul Razzaq bowled Ramesh.

This was always going to be a tense contest. And what better tribute can the fans have paid to the game they love and the cricketers they worship than to heed the call for peaceand harmony in the stadium?