W HEN INDIA’S explosive batsmen face Pakistan’s scorching bowlers, cricket fever grips both nations. People crowd into tea stalls, huddling around a single television or radio. Cities in the winning country celebrate with fireworks. Angry fans from the losing side burn their players’ effigies.

In terms of sheer numbers, it is the world’s biggest sporting rivalry: the two countries together hold a fifth of the world’s population. But cricket matches between India and Pakistan have become exceedingly rare. Only 20 have been played in the past decade, compared with 63 in the one before. Instead, the Pakistan Cricket Board and the Board of Control for Cricket in India are battling it out before an arbitration panel in Dubai. The panel, which heard evidence earlier this month, is assessing the Pakistanis’ claim for $63m in compensation, after India backed out of a series of matches.

India had undertaken to play Pakistan a total of nine times in 2015 in the United Arab Emirates. (The Pakistanis have played their “home” games there since terrorists attacked Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Lahore in 2009.) But the Indians say these matches could not go ahead without their prime minister’s say-so. Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who takes a hard line against Pakistan, has so far withheld it. But many Pakistanis suspect that the Indian board shares Mr Modi’s prejudices. It does not help that Pakistan’s relatively poor cricketers need the revenue from the tour more than India’s do.

The arbitrators, who are due to rule in the coming weeks, can compel India to pay Pakistan, but not to play them. The two teams have played just one series against one another since 2008, when Pakistani terrorists killed 166 people in Mumbai. Instead, they meet only at international tournaments. The fans, starved of such contests, await them eagerly. A television audience of half a billion watched India trounce Pakistan in the World Cup in 2011, and 300m saw Pakistan return the favour in last year’s Champions’ Trophy. Yet politics still streaks across the pitch. Indian police charged 15 people with sedition last year, for the crime of cheering for Pakistan. (The charges were later dropped.)

This is not the first time cricket between India and Pakistan has been stymied. Between 1962 and 1977, during which time the two countries were twice at war, their teams did not play at all. But cricket diplomacy has also helped bridge political divisions. In 2005 Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan’s president, and Manmohan Singh, Mr Modi’s predecessor, restarted peace talks by watching a cricket match together in Delhi. A similar rapprochement began when Mr Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart to watch their teams play at the World Cup in 2011. Some hope that Mr Modi and Pakistan’s new prime minister, Imran Khan, a former cricket star, can hit it off too. But progress between the two countries off the field is less likely if they hardly ever meet on it.