Cricket’s greatest rivalry has become its most overplayed fixture. The guaranteed group-stage meetings are killing the magic, stifling emerging teams, and turning spectacle into monotony. To make things worse, Out of the 23 matches played so far in ICC tournaments, India have won 19 of them making it a one-sided affair on most occasions.
India’s 61-run victory in Colombo should have been a spectacle. Instead, it felt like watching a rerun we’d all seen too many times before. Pakistan, chasing 176, collapsed to 114 all out in just 18 overs—a batting implosion that was neither shocking nor particularly memorable. The problem wasn’t the cricket itself, but what this match represents: the slow death of novelty in the sport’s biggest rivalry.
“According to me, if two teams play 15-20 matches and if [head-to-head] it is 7-7 or 8-7, then that is called a rivalry. But 13-0, 10-1….I don’t know what the stats are. But this is not a rivalry anymore.” India skipper Suryakumar Yadav’s statement after last year’s Asia Cup final reiterated the very similar feeling slowly taking prominence in every cricket fan’s mind in the India-Pakistan game.
Once regarded as a mother of all battles doesn’t feel like a rivalry anymore, does it? What was once regarded as the mother of all cricketing rivalries, has now become boring one-sided encounters.
If you look at the last decade or so, the charm of an India-Pakistan battle has lost its sheen big time in terms of competitiveness on the field. While one team keeps dominating most of the times, the other shows glimpses of brilliance but mostly is not able to sustain it.
Apart from the Champions Trophy, India have had complete dominance over Pakistan in ICC tournaments having won 19 of the 23 matches played to date.
Since both teams play in multi-nation tournament only, the contrast between both teams in terms of performance becomes more evident. If we add the Asia Cup into the equation, then India have won all the last eight matches against Pakistan in all multi-national tournaments.
So, given the data evidence, it won’t be wrong to say that the hype around the India-Pakistan game is more about the theatrics around the match rather than the on-field performance, and it also poses a big question that if the results stay the same, then it won’t be that the marquee game will become just another cricket match.
