Soccer has maintained separate national identities in Britain. Indian cricket has played a part in fostering national unity though it may not be as mass-based as Brazilian soccer. There is unlikely to be cracks in Indian cricket along the lines of what is now happening in the West Indies. In Britain, sport has had a good effect on race relations. In the US, the argument developed by John Hoberman that the muscularity of sport works to stereotype blacks as 'animals' holds good.
International sport is somewhere between British and American situations.
Last February, I watched on TV the unruly Asian Test Championship match between the two countries in Calcutta. Cricketing ties can have a direct impact on bilateral ties and they should be on the agenda in high-level talks between the governments of both countries. It wouldn't be a bad idea to involve ex-cricketers of both countries in diplomatic talks. Assuming that there is no war, India and Pakistan should have as many forms of exchanges, trade, economic, sporting and cultural, as possible to prevent it. Cricket is the most important one among them because it can appease hostility as well as create it at a mass level.