New Delhi: India extended their dominance over Pakistan with a crushing win in a Group A clash of the T20 World Cup 2026 at the R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo, on Sunday. Courtesy of the 61-run victory, The Men In Blue are now 8-1 ahead in the head-to-head at the T20 World Cups. While previous World Cup meetings between the two arch-rivals have been closely fought contests, Sunday’s fixture was one of the most lop-sided matches in the history of India-Pakistan rivalry.
Apart from the first over of the match, when Salman Ali Agha dismissed dangerous Abhishek Sharma for a duck, there was not a single moment of the match when Pakistan even looked like a worthy opponent. Even India’s games with associate nations, the USA and Namibia, had more heartstopping moments than the much-hyped clash against Pakistan.
Once regarded as one of the fiercest rivalries in cricket, the India-Pakistan contest is losing its shine with every passing game.
Sunday’s meeting came in the aftermath of a deadlock between the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the International Cricket Council (ICC), which only ended a few days ahead of the fixture after Pakistan took a U-turn and confirmed that they will play the match.
It was expected that the Pakistan players on the pitch would be as firm and tough as the country’s administrators, who put on a display of strength and intimidated the global body with an aggressive stance.
But all the Salman Agha-led side did was to surrender.
The 61-run defeat, their biggest against India in a T20I match, served as a reminder to fans across the globe that the gulf between the two sides is wider than ever.
With defeats in eight out of nine matches in the T20 World Cup and a hat-trick of losses at the 2025 Asia Cup, it seems Pakistan can no longer compete, let alone win, against India, and this is a worrying trend for all the stakeholders.
Fans losing interest in India-Pakistan rivalry as commercial value set to take a hit
With fans no longer getting to witness and feel the thrill of the match, the interest and hype surrounding the India-Pakistan match is destined to wane, which will impact the commercial value of this once marquee fixture.
India’s domination over Pakistan has reached unprecedented levels in the last few years, with the latter’s last win in an ODI coming way back in the 2017 Champions Trophy final.
According to former players and observers of the game in Pakistan, the lop-sided nature of the India-Pakistan matches is putting the commercial value of the fixture at risk.
Former Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman, Lt General (rtd) Tauqir Zia, noted that with every Pakistan loss and predictability surrounding the high-profile game, the commercial value in the ICC is diminishing.
“The fact is Pakistan and India matches have become too one-sided. This time the hype built up because the PCB announced the boycott of the game against India then un-boycotted it. But sooner or later the Pakistan and India games will lose their value to the ICC and member boards,” he cautioned.
Pervaz Mir, owner of an advertising agency in Karachi, said that fans in Pakistan are losing hope for a revival of the once formidable rivalry.
“Now fans are also losing hope because no one wants to see one-sided encounters including sponsors, advertisers,” Mir said.
He revealed that ICC and the broadcaster earn the majority of the revenue from India-Pakistan matches from the Indian market. But even in India, the hype is slowly fading due to the mismatch in the rivalry.
“When the boycott decision was announced there were many Indians who said it doesn’t matter as the matches have already become too predictable.
“The commercial value of these matches will diminish unless the matches become more close and competitive,” he said.
Nadeem Mandviwalla, a film distributor and owner of a Cineplex in Karachi, revealed that the crowd, which gathered for a screening of the match, headed towards the exit when Pakistan lost four early wickets.
“The thing is even if we qualify for the semi-finals we are likely to come up against India again and we all know what the result will be and that hurts the most,” cricket writer and analyst, Omair Alavi, said.
Pakistani cricket legends like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq, Ramiz Raja, and Aamir Sohail, who tasted several famous wins against India in the ’80s and ’90s, expressed their disappointment over the sorry state of India-Pakistan rivalry.
(With PTI Inputs)