Social media hype drew me into the Champions Trophy final between neighbours India and Pakistan on a blazing hot Sunday, though cricket is not my thing.

A sports site on Twitter flaunted a picture showing fans from both countries sporting their nations’ flags, with the caption “Friends Forever” and a screaming headline that said about a billion people would be watching the showdown on TV.

(Fans however, thought the figure was exaggerated as the last major clash between the two brought half the figure of 495 million eyeballs to the small screen.

The fans were pointing to the stat for the World Cup semi-final between the two in 2011. The World Cup final in the same year between India and Sri Lanka drew a larger audience of 558 million).

Meanwhile, India had “thrashed” (headline writers in the sub-continent are partial to this word to describe both a sporting debacle or a real-life beating) Pakistan in an earlier match, but Pakistan fought valiantly with the other teams to capture the final sweet spot for an encounter with its rival.

The buildup to this encounter includes a deteriorating relationship between the two countries due to the age-old conflict over Kashmir and the recent deadly clashes across the border, and with movie stars, writers and singers not being allowed into India, vows being made that India will never play in Pakistan or host Pakistan for a match in India.

I was supposed to hop across to a typing centre to cancel my son’s residence visa that had expired as our departure date to India is fast approaching, but driving in the abominable heat, where the air-conditioner in the car struggles to kick in for the whole trip, seemed inhuman, especially if the human is fasting during the daylight hours.

Wall of heat

A day earlier newspapers in Dubai gleefully printed the headline, “It is now officially 50 degrees [Celsius].” To walk to the corner grocery, you had to battle an invisible wall of heat, made worse by the high humidity that drenched you and depleted your vital salts.

A quick call to the typing centre revealed the happy news the visa cancellation can be done after 5pm when the centre reopens after the afternoon break and when the heat is a bit bearable. Since we are not a sporting family we had no sports channels subscribed. I tried streaming the match on my laptop, but that did not work.

When my wife returned from work she found me staring at the laptop screen where the numbers kept changing. It was a blog streaming the action in runs scored.

It started off quietly, but then the tide turned and I realised why you usually read the next day about how some people keeled over and died while watching their favourite team play.

Only recently I had managed to do away with the blood pressure medication with daily exercises and a sort of strict diet of no salt and horribly bland food. But as the cricket match proceeded I could feel the vein in my neck pulsing urgently. To take a break from the relentless runs being scored I decided to take a break and surf the social media instead. Which was a mistake.

Many of you know that there is nothing social about social media. It is not only the well-spring of fake news, but it also crawls with those nasty creatures called trolls who love spreading hate, racism and misogyny.

One thing I learned after watching the match is not to buy an expensive smart TV as Indians and Pakistanis tend to smash their TV sets to vent their anger at their team. “Better take our old 42-inch TV,” I told my wife The other lesson is to never talk about sport over dinner.

Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. You can follow him on Twitter at @mahmood_saberi.