Is India V Pakistan still the greatest rivalry of Cricket?

Rating crowds, blue and green faces, flags that wave as battle standards.

This is the opening of the best rivalry: India V Pakistan, a new netflix documentary in one of the most historical contests of Crickt.

Of India VIRENDER SEHWAG It establishes the tone: “This is a bigger contest between one between the bat and the ball.” Cut to dramatic images of some of the matches, the Wagah edge, split refugees. A nation was divided into two, but always tied by the Cricket.

Pakistan Waqar Younis He does not doubt: “I put this rivalry at the top. There is no rival as India V Pakistan.” Of India R Ashwin He agrees: “I think this is bigger than the ashes.” King Ramiz It says that it is “political garrison that makes this world class rivalry.”

Despite wars, border clashes and terrorist attacksThe rivalry of Cricket from India-Pakistan has suffered, driven by national history and pride. Even when the policy stops the bilateral series, the tournaments of the International Cricket Council (ICC) keep the fire alive, making each game a high -risk show.

But Pakistan’s overwhelming defeat against India Sunday at the Champions Trophy has revived the question: is this rivalry overvalued, supported by slogans as “war less the shooting”: a phrase that George Orwell coined in 1945 to criticize excessive nationalism in sports?

Is this the first clash in the Crick, or only one of the most dramatic? Have you lost your competitive advantage, executing more in history than in intensity?

Consider this. From an eight wickt beating in 2018 to a demolition of 228 races in 2023, India has dominated, winning six of the last eight hate. The last victory of Pakistan? The 2017 Champions Trophy Final: A memory that vanishes in an increasing Unilateral rivalry.

What a rivalryDawn asked, a leader Pakistani newspaper, promptly after the last debacle. A Cricket War that is now just a big yawnHeaded India Today magazine.

The loss would be easier to accept if Pakistan were at least fighting, according to Zahaib Ahmed Majeed of Dawn.

Majeed believes that the problematic policy between the two neighbors is the only thing that has kept the rivalry alive.

“In a way, we must thank the politicians of these two nations for keeping this rivalry alive, because Cricket players, especially on our side, are certainly unable to present a show that is worthy of their turnover,” he wrote.

“Cut the War of Words and the Royal Wars and what will remain is a Professional Cricket unit against random team at the last minute. There is no rivalry in terms of pure crying merits.”

India today was no less mortal. “With its history of unilateral losses before India in recent years, the Cricket of Pakistan is quickly sliding in pity For Cricket fans. ” Sandipan Sharma wrote.

To be true, Pakistan’s Cricket problems continue to increase. The Final Four have been lost in the last three world drinks of Odi, crashed into the World Cup T20 group and now, as hosts of the Champions Trophy, they have reached the rock background.

From the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team busPakistan Cricket has fought against isolation, political agitation, the instability of the Board, frequent training changes and selection controversies, everything that adds to its struggles. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, India has increased as the potency of Cricket, backed by a strong national system and the IPL, the richest international league of the Crick.

The Pakistani Cricket writer Osman Samiuddin also points out a feeling of “marginalization” between the Cricket players of his country, who remain excluded from the IPL and his franchise ecosystem (no Pakistani player has appeared in the IPL since 2009, since they were expelled after the terrorist attacks of Mumbai). “I think they see the Indian Cricket players and others too, such as Australian and English Crick players, as participants in a Crick world from which they have been excluded,” he told an program.

All this has contributed to the rapid fortune of the team.

“It is a useless exercise to ask if this is the The lowest cryket in Pakistan has been. However, even when Pakistan has collapsed to spectacular minimums in the past, they have done so in a way that justifies the cliché of its mercury nature, “wrote Sidharth Monga in Espncricinfo, After Sunday’s game.

“This slide feels like a terminal and a slow decrease. The players are not fighting with each other, there is no rear door intrigue, there are no cliques in the team conspiring to dethrone the captain, there are no comic or discouraging exhausties, I do not defeat them They snatched from the jaws of victory. “

The “War Without Weapons” narrative once had weight, especially when Imran Khan’s Pakistan, armed with a fearsome rhythm attack by Wasim Akram and Waqar Youis and batting stars like Javed Mity and Inzamam-Ul-Haq, regularly obtained The best of India.

“The narrative may have been true until the early 2000s because this is how real fans felt. But it was soon kidnapped by multinationals and the media to take advantage of the hyper-patches of everything,” Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Pakistani author and columnist, told me.

“The quality of the Crick between the two parties is no longer the same. The Indian Cricket continues to improve. In fact, I believe that the narration in question here has ended up pressing more than willing to pocket its financial benefits.”

Crickt’s boards and stations are doing everything possible to keep the rivalry alive, and the ICC will not reduce exaggeration, it is too valuable in an era of overexposure of the Crick, limited stars and competition of the Cricket franchise.

This game has become a financial giant, feeding a parallel economy wherever – Dubai, London, Ahmedabad is played, attracting fans who spend big to be there. “Pakistan has talent, but the contest now feels more psychological,” says Cricket writer Gautam Bhattacharyya.

The Santosh Desai brand consultant feels that the true competition between the archirrival develops beyond the terrain of the Cricket and the “rivalry prosper more in imagination than in reality.”

“Asymmetry (between the two sides) only feeds the exaggeration. In the superiority of India, feeding a script designed for validation, not uncertainty,” Desai told me.

The ViceCapitan of India, Shubman Gill, rules out the overvaluing talk, calling it to the fans of the contest love to see. “It is an exciting contest when both teams play. Everyone likes to see it. If so many people are happy to see the game, so who are we to say that they are without shortage or overvalued,” journalists on Eva on Sundays told EVA Sunday? game.

Gill is possibly right. Tickets for Indian games -Pakistan still fly from the shelves: the CPI reported that they are sold in minutes. An amazing More than 600 million viewers Tune in to see Sunday’s game on the Indian Transmission Platform Jiohotstar, establishing new albums.

But for now, as Crickt Ayaz Memon writer says, “exaggeration is more exciting than Cricket itself.”