The Asia Cup clash between India and Pakistan is as much about the noise outside the ground as the action within it

The coaches are coming together as one — and Gautam Gambhir has first-hand experience of what it can be like to play Pakistan — to tell the players that each one of them must find a way to treat this simply as a game of cricket. There are reminders to stick to processes and fall back on muscle memory. The fans, now this is a tricky one. In the past, the unbearable pressure that Indian cricketers had to deal with was linear: dont lose against Pakistan. When that happened, in the not-so-distant past, cars were pelted with stones and name boards on houses blackened, but today the backlash is instantaneous in the form of online mobs.