BIRMINGHAM, England — Measured by the numbers who care about it, the Champions Trophy cricket match between Pakistan and India can claim to be a continuation of the world’s greatest sporting rivalry.

It is as if all the feelings of the New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox rivalry in baseball, Barcelona vs. Real Madrid in soccer and England vs. Australia in any sport had been distilled and deepened with an extra dose of hostile geopolitics and the passions of 1.4 billion people.

Of course, not every single person in Pakistan and India will be transfixed by events at Edgbaston stadium on Saturday, any more than the whole of Boston and New York really stops for the Red Sox against the Yankees. But plenty will, not only back home in South Asia but among the vast global diasporas of the two nations.

That diaspora is one reason Birmingham is an ideal location for the clash. England’s second-most-populous city has just over one million people, of whom around one-fifth — divided two to one in favor of Pakistan — have roots in one of the South Asian giants.