A victory for Birmingham and Britain too

India and Pakistan played cricket in Birmingham on Sunday. India won. And maybe Britain did a bit, too.

As news filtered through of the grim events in London on Saturday night, the thought briefly arose that this game could be abandoned. Maybe as a mark of respect and maybe because it has become clear that these sort of events - busy and joyful - are the new targets of those who hate our way of life, our governments' policies or our history. Or maybe they just hate; the targets are far too indiscriminate for any semblance of justification.

And there was some nervousness. Of course, when you walk along packed pavements towards the ground, you cannot help but think how easy it would be for a car to be used as a weapon. Of course, when fireworks greeted the players and officials onto the pitch, a few jumped at the noise. Of course, when smoke was seen from behind the Wyatt Stand, there were nudges and glances and sighs of relief when it turned out to be someone burning some garden refuse. It would be disingenuous to pretend that life hasn't changed.

But this game had to be played. It had to be played to show that hate won't win. It had to be played as it offered another chance to build bridges rather than burn them.

There's nothing new in this attitude. At the start of the Second World War, Small Heath in Birmingham was the only place in Britain making rifles. A few miles down the road, in Castle Bromwich, they made the majority of the Spitfires that helped prevent invasion. Five-hundred military vehicles a week rolled off the production lines in Longbridge. Twenty miles to the east, in Coventry, were munitions factories.

As a result, the region was bombed ferociously. On one night in 1940, more than 500 German bombers - they had time to refuel and make second raids - rained hell upon Coventry. More than 36,000 incendiary bombs were dropped that night alone. Two-thirds of the city's buildings were damaged. Over the next few weeks, Birmingham experienced several similar raids. One of them lasted 13 hours and forever altered the face of the city.

And do you know what happened? People carried on. Just about every factory that had been damaged was back to full production in weeks or months. Some of them had to move production to a series of satellite factories to mitigate against future attacks, some continued their work even while their dead or injured colleagues were dragged away. Either way, production continued and the armed forces were supplied with the resources they needed to win the Battle of Britain and, as a consequence, the war.

Birmingham was rebuilt quickly in the years that followed the war. Quickly and cheaply. Instead of the windmill that once graced Holloway Head, tower blocks were thrown up to accommodate a population that was struggling for work and money. The city lost its looks but should wear its scars with pride. The world would look very different now had the people reacted less stoically in those months.

A few years later, the IRA were the aggressors. The most serious of the many attacks (one came as recently as 2001) on Birmingham came in November 1974 when bombs were planted in two pubs and outside a bank; 21 died and 182 were injured. Life for the 100,000 or so people of Irish heritage in the city was, for a while, extremely uncomfortable. But, in time, tensions eased. These days the city claims that their annual St. Patrick's Day Parade is the third largest in the world.

So, of course, Birmingham got on with business on Sunday. Of course, as Pakistan and India fans sat together, there was no trace of the division that has prevented these teams playing bilateral series for several years. Of course, in the city where the Rivers of Blood speech was made (1968, in what is now the Burlington Hotel), the supporters of both sides - and a fair new neutrals - sat side by side without any need for segregation in a celebration not just of sport but of the multi-cultural society that, every day in this city, sees people of Polish and Asian and Caribbean and Irish and Somali descent raise families, build careers, work and travel and play alongside one another without drama.

None of this is intended to suggest the character of the people of Birmingham is inherently better than that of any city. Much the same could have been written about Manchester and Mumbai; about Lahore and London. But the example it has given us - that people of different beliefs can coexist and that sport can build bridges - is valuable at a time when some among us seem to want to widen divides.

The people at this game - British Asians, generally - may well be among those who suffer as a result of recent events. As tensions increase and reactions become more knee-jerk, those who cannot differentiate between radical and mainstream (or even decide that all people with brown skin are a problem), we may see a rise in discrimination and hate.

But you take the Asian influence out of cricket in England and you have a sport played by the public school elite. You have, pretty much, croquet or racquets or real tennis. You have a charming but largely irrelevant artefact of the past. The Asian influence has kept the sport alive in Britain over recent years. It must be cherished and developed. And it is only a tiny fraction, a tiny and largely inconsequential fraction, of the way in which Asian culture has enriched British culture.

There's another aspect to this. What would the reaction of some of these teams have been if this tournament had been staged in Pakistan or Bangladesh and similar attacks had occurred in cities in those nations? Would such a tournament have continued? Cricket may well have been guilty of double-standards here. If it's important that normal life continues in Birmingham, it's important in Lahore, too.

We have seen some terrible things in England in recent days. Things that can't be fixed by a day of sport. But we have seen some great things, too. And Birmingham on Sunday showed modern Britain at its best. The match was a damp squib, but the fact that it was played - and the spirit in which it was enjoyed - provided hope of better times ahead. We need that right now.