Two bites of the cherry

With England's cricket team suddenly fashionable again, their tour of Pakistan offers a chance to assess how far the growing Asian population in the UK have been integrated into British society and what role cricket plays in this. Daniel Brigham went to Whitechapel in East London to find out who the local Pakistani population will be supporting.

Asians in Whitechapel: 'The government should be realistic when they're asking people to forget about their own identity ' © Getty Images

Whitechapel, London. There are few places in the UK that symbolise the history of the seedy underworld of British society as colourfully as this East End neighbourhood. Jack the Ripper murdered at least five prostitutes in the dark, destitute back alleys of Whitechapel in 1888, giving the newspapers their first legendary serial killer. Just minutes away from Ripper's hunting ground, Ronald Kray, one half of the notorious Kray twins who ran London's organised crime scene for over a decade, murdered a rival at the Blind Beggar pub on Whitechapel Road in 1968. He got away with it.

Where once Charles Dickens used many of Whitechapel's locations in the more squalid passages of several of his novels, today it represents a different kind of London, based on multiculturalism and organised market-trading rather than organised crime. Where once it housed predominantly Irish and Jewish immigrants, today it is home to thriving Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities. On the surface, Whitechapel should be cricket mad.

Naeem Ahmed, 59, is carrying several heavy looking shopping bags from the nearby supermarket. He is happy to stop for a chance to catch his breath and chat about cricket; he is less happy about how the sport is viewed by the younger generation. "They [teenagers] just don't talk about the game. It's all football, football, football. It's mad. When I try to talk about it to my sons, they have no clue what I'm talking about. It's different in Pakistan, there youngsters are playing and talking about the game. There's no David Beckham to worry about, it's all Shoaib [Akhtar] or Shahid Afridi."

After ten minutes on Whitechapel Road, talking to market traders and shoppers, it's hard not to agree with Naeem. Those with hair starting to grey are more than willing to talk about the game; some are even too willing and start to follow me up the road to ask my thoughts on anything cricket-related. Those young enough to still gel their hair are far less willing to talk. There does seem, however, to be a more subtle factor behind the lack of interest among the younger generation: embarrassment. Approach groups of teenagers, and you'll get quizzical looks and laughed at when you ask them about cricket. Approach them individually, and the reaction is different. Fahad Khan, 15, admits as much.

"Most mates my age are into cricket, we all play a bit when we can. We just don't talk about it much; we talk about football and girls. I think it's a bit boring, but my father will let me know how we're getting on." Fahad is third-generation, and the "we" he's talking about is Pakistan. "Well, my father supports them and my grand-father supported them," he says. "Yeah, I'm a British-Asian, but my roots are Pakistani. I like the England players, Flintoff is great to watch, the best player in the world. When they're playing anyone apart from Pakistan, I want them to win. I want the England football team to win as well - and they never play Pakistan so I guess that means I support the England football team!"

Britain would be a less vibrant, less tolerant place to live without the passion these fans bring © Getty Images

These words would not convince former Conservative Party chairman Lord Tebbit, who infamously proposed a `Cricket Test' to determine the Britishness of ethnic minorities in 1990: if you weren't part of the Barmy Army, well, you just weren't a Brit. Recently, he said that the London bombings would have been "less likely" if his proposals had been accepted. The essence of what Tebbit proposed - that immigrants should do more to embrace the culture they come into - have been taken on by the current Labour government. There is a danger, however, of this proposal being taken to its extreme and resulting in multiculturalism being replaced by uniculturalism. Britain would be a far duller, less vibrant, less tolerant place to live. The final proposals of a `Britishness' test recently published by the Home Office that all immigrants applying for British citizenship will have to pass produced a field day in the British newspapers and ensured that Tebbit's legacy hadn't diminished entirely.

Of the 57 people of Pakistani-origin I asked, eight said they were supporting England in the series. All eight were in their 20s. "I feel British," says Aamer Raza, a 26-year-old accountant. "I was born here, and Britain has treated me well. Obviously I have strong roots in Pakistan, and I'm very proud of them. But I hope England, my country, beat Pakistan, my father's country." This Tebbit-friendly view of supporting England is rare. "I love living here, I have done for over thirty years with very few problems," says Masood Hasan, 48, in a Whitechapel café. "That doesn't mean that I should support England, I think that would be dishonest. My heart is with Pakistan. Any Englishman who emigrates to Australia won't start supporting Australia. They'd have to go into hiding. The government should be realistic when they're asking people to forget about their own identity."

Masood is joined by Mohammad Assan, who is just five years younger than Masood. Their views are greeted by much head nodding and murmurs of agreement among the café's Asian and white customers. "I love cricket, I love watching England play. I've seen them play more than Pakistan, but I still want Pakistan to beat England. Although I feel part of British society, and am happy to be part of it, I was born in Pakistan and that's where my heart is. I just wish Freddie Flintoff had been born in Pakistan too!"