Is the India vs Pakistan rivalry losing its spice?

You can ask any Indian fan who they love watching their team play against, and the answer will inevitably be Pakistan. The same goes for a Pakistani fan.

Everything comes to a standstill on the day of an India vs Pakistan match. Any ICC event seems incomplete without an Indo-Pak game which is always guaranteed a full house.

It is difficult to describe in words the intensity of this battle. Tickets are sold out ages before the match. Even though cricket's most renowned battle is the Ashes, over the years the Indo-Pak rivalry has turned out to be the mother of all battles.

You can ask any player from either team who has ever been a part of this match-up, and they tell you about the sleepless nights they endured on the eve of the match. Such is the pressure to win.

But if we look more closely, we realize that over the course of the last five years or so - ever since the bilateral series between the two sides were stopped due to political issues - the so-called "paisa vasool" rivalry has turned into a lopsided affair.

The final match of the last bilateral series between the two sides, at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 2013, was an edge of the seat low-scoring thriller which raised the temperature on an otherwise chilly winter day. Since then, the two sides have faced each other on nine occasions in T20s and 50-over matches - three in the Asia Cup, three in the World Cup and three in the Champions Trophy.

If you keep aside the Asia Cup encounter on 2nd March 2014 where Shahid Afridi's heroics helped Pakistan edge past India by 1 wicket, the match-up hasn't been able to live up to the expectations. The intensity and competitiveness seem to have gone missing.

Pakistan failed to perform as a group, the way they did in the Champions Trophy final

That could be attributed to the gap in quality between the two sides. The continued weakening of the Pakistani team has put extra pressure on them, denying them the chance to play with freedom.

The 2017 Champions Trophy final was an exception to that. India had already beaten them comprehensively in the league stage, and given Pakistan's infamous tendency to crumble on the big stage, India were clear favorites to add another trophy to their cabinet. Perhaps they took the match too lightly, and over-confidence got the better of them.

But apart from that one match, India have dominated their neighbors in rather handsome manner lately, beating them on 7 out of 9 occasions. They have been clinical in their approach, bringing joy to the Indian fans, but the cricket world at large has certainly been missing the tension of traditional Indo-Pak matches.

Today's match in Dubai was just another exhibition of the trend that has been in existence for a while now. Pakistan looked on track for a good score when Babar Azam and Shoaib Malik were at the crease. But poor shots and irresponsible cricket had India chasing a modest 163 runs, which they achieved with ease to end another one-sided match.

For a neutral fan, it's rather disheartening to see that a match-up which everyone looked forward too is slowly but surely losing its spice. But who knows, a reversal of fortunes might just be around the corner.