Sport Weekly: India’s Cricket World Cup approaches its climax

Welcome to Al Jazeera’s Sport Weekly newsletter, which explores the intersection of sport with politics, culture and money. You can sign up here.

After six and a half weeks and nearly 50 matches involving 10 teams and 10 cities, the 2023 Cricket World Cup FINALLY comes to an end on Sunday with Australia facing the daunting task of stopping unbeaten hosts India in the final.

India’s cricket-conscious prime minister will likely be among the 132,000 people watching the final in his namesake Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

It’s been a bit of a procession so far for India, who have barely broken stride in winning 10 out of 10 World Cup games.

If India somehow manage to lose the showpiece final, it will be an embarrassment for Modi but there’s no doubt about where the power in global cricket resides. The country’s highly influential, politically backed cricket board; vast finances driven by the lucrative Indian Super League; and a 1.4 billion cricket-crazy population increasingly make for a unipolar cricketing world order.

In an essay this week, Suparna Sharma looked at Bollywood’s stormy relationship with cricket and what the films say about a changing India; from post-colonial underdog to increasingly assertive power, to the aggressive Hindu nationalism prevalent under Modi – which is complicated by the country’s diversity.

“Cricket and cinema are the last bastions of secularism, but they are also a reflection of our society,” writer-director Varun Grover told Al Jazeera.

In stories over the last few weeks, we’ve spoken to players, coaches, fans, and observers to dig into the issues around this World Cup and the broader trends in cricket.

Highlights include:

• ‘The BJP’s World Cup’: Modi wields a political cricket bat
• Whatever happened to ‘cricket diplomacy’?
• Pakistan fans a glaring absence
• How India and Pakistan cricket fans really see their rivalry
• In cricket-crazy Kashmir, the India-Pakistan clash tests emotions
• A cricket rivalry evolves: How Indian fans came to love English players
• ‘I expected better’: Why there were so many empty seats
• Afghanistan’s captain Hashmat Shahidi on his side’s thrilling run
• Paul van Meekeren: From delivering pizzas to Cricket World Cup heroics
• How ‘visionary’ Virat Kohli changed Indian cricket

Meanwhile, India has also been the driving force behind cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics, starting from Los Angeles 2028, as India eyes hosting the 2036 games.

Some hope that cricket’s Olympic inclusion can help grow the game and make it go truly global, but there’s also the danger that it feeds into inequality. With great power comes great responsibility, and India has a duty to use its clout for the good of the game.

Please do join us this weekend for previews of the final, live coverage of the match and a deeper look at where cricket is heading.

Elsewhere this week

• Stephen Constantine, Pakistan’s well-travelled English coach, talks to Al Jazeera about taking on one of the toughest jobs in international football.
• ‘Bring Hersh Home’: Football club waits for return of Israeli ‘leftie’ held captive by Hamas.
• From a coma to captaining Bangladesh: Jamal Bhuyan’s incredible football journey.
• Football ‘can bring joy’ to Lebanon amid Gaza war.