Jagan Karki, London —  The best two ODI sides in the world go head-to-head in the World Cup group stages today as England face a must-win match against India.

The teams ranked number one and two in the ICC’s rankings coming into this tournament last met when England won a gripping bilateral series 2-1 here last summer.

“It’s so embedded in the culture. The atmosphere that’s created when an India game is on, it just adds to the emotional connection. That’s really why I support India ahead of England.”

Pavan Patel, 21, is English-born and bred but during England’s Cricket World Cup match against India on Sunday, he’ll be rooting for India, BBC reported.

This cultural clash is not an uncommon thing to hear.

Similar,  trend was observed when English team was playing with the team from Bangladesh, Srilanka and Afghanistan.

Safkat Nadvedi , a British youth born from the parents of Bangladeshi origin says “ I support Bangladesh team first and than England and other south Asian teams”.

Cricket fans born and brought up in England, with family ties to another country, often choose to support their familial country over England however during the other sporting event such as Euro cup , World Cup , tennis and olympic game the social media trend shows that most of the British South Asians support team GB with pride.

According to BBC , In 1990, Lord Norman Tebbit, a politician from the Conservative party, controversially suggested that Asian immigrants and their children had not truly integrated into Britain until they supported the England cricket team ahead of their country of origin.

Over 80% of World Cup tickets have been bought by people who live in England, but less than half by people who actually support the England team.

Apart from British Indian youths , British Youths from the parents Pakistani , Bangladeshi , Nepalese Srilankan origins are found to be supporting England team until their country of origin is not playing.