The modern reality of a once intense rivalry

"India-Pakistan once again, and probably will draw the same questions," was the first thing asked of Virat Kohli at his press conference, even before the questions about the coach and captain rift. Because unlike the rules of Fight Club, the first rule of India-Pakistan is to talk about India-Pakistan. 

Yet this feels like the quietest contest between these two teams in a long time.

Outside the India team's hotel, there were a handful of fans waiting for autographs, and not many seemed to be Indian fans. Often there is a feeling around the city, the hotel and among the players that lets you know an India-Pakistan match is coming. In Birmingham right now, you'd barely know there is a game of cricket going to be played, let alone the match that is hyped as a war without the shooting.  

Perhaps in the days of amateur cricket, when a win for most teams was about national identity and pride, India-Pakistan was the biggest contest in sport. Now it might still be one of the most-watched contests, but for players who have marketing deals, agents, and are regulating their diet for optimum performance, every match is important.

Modern cricketers live in a bubble, and while Twitter and WhatsApp can burst it at times, they will be staying focused and bonding as a unit while ticking off the processes. At training they didn't do a super secret India-Pakistan only training regime, on match day they won't inject themselves with green or blue magical serum to turn into giant India-Pakistan gods. They will play as best they can, like the professionals they are, for their country, but also for their team-mates and their future. 

Mickey Arthur was focusing on the professional part of it. "Yeah, we know for us to progress in this tournament, we've got to hit the ground running. So whether it was against South Africa, whether it was against Sri Lanka, the intensity and the expectation, certainly from myself as coach and I'm sure from the captain, would have been the same. It's just a different opposition, and there's a little bit of hype. And it's a massive game. But every game for us in this competition is massive. We can't take our foot off the pedal in any game, and we can't think, ah, it's India, we have to just lift ourselves, because that would be very unprofessional."

When talking about the rivalry, Sarfraz Ahmed spoke of the talk of the rivalry more than the rivalry itself. "It is also played up in the media. I feel those things affect the players sometimes. But we have tried to tell the players these things happen. There will be hype created in the media."

The professionally grumpy Virat Kohli said of the contest: "Nothing different, to be honest. I know it sounds pretty boring, but this is exactly what we feel as cricketers. We're not saying anything different to what we feel." Nothing different, the Indian captain, on India-Pakistan, the day before. Things done changed. 

Of course that is probably an understatement, or at least a lesson in the language of pre-match press conferences. 

When Aakash Chopra played in Pakistan in the Goodwill tour of 2003-04, India's first Test series in Pakistan in 14 years, they knew it wasn't a normal series: "As we grew up, it was not an option to lose to Pakistan". Sachin Tendulkar told Chopra that he didn't sleep for 15 nights before the big match in the 2003 World Cup. How many nights' sleep would Virat Kohli lose over a Pakistan match now? Probably none.  

The relationship between the two countries has changed so much in the last 10 to 15 years. They are still two nations with a shared history and sibling rivalry, there are still problems on the border and of terrorism, but the roles of the siblings have changed. India is on its way to being one of the most important nations on earth, trying to go cashless while their leader sells out Madison Square Garden. Pakistan has been fighting with itself. India is an economic and political juggernaut, so why would a loss to Pakistan, their less successful sibling, mean that much? This current cricket relationship is more like a massively exaggerated version of Australia and New Zealand: the bigger sibling patronises the little one, when they think of them at all. 

There is still tension, the last scheduled match between India and Pakistan caused such political problems that it needed to be moved to a new venue. But there is no doubt that it's not the same, as Chopra says: "It's no longer the matter of life and death, or a war without the weapons". 

The players are professional, the nations have moved on, many of the fans who will watch this game at Edgbaston will have friends who are from their great rivals. "The days of effigies getting burned, and player's homes getting vandalised seem to have passed," Chopra says. "When India used to win they'd use firecrackers on the streets, I think now we are well beyond the firecracker celebrations". And as for the players, he says: "the current crop are not overwhelmed."

There are still uber-nationalists on both sides who cling to every chance to beat their enemy. Some players feel that way, most notably Gautam Gambhir, who has suggested that all ties with Pakistan be cut until terrorism ends.

But most players don't feel that strongly. Shahid Afridi recently wrote about his friendship with Indian players (Gambhir aside). Perhaps if the two teams played more often they would have a normal rivalry, but they don't. Of Virat Kohli's 264 international matches, 5% has been against Pakistan (16% against Australia, 17% against England). Azhar Ali has played India twice in 105 matches. And on the odd occasion they play each other, there haven't many good games, or Pakistan wins, to spark anything outside Shahid Afridi's last-over heroics in Dhaka three years ago. 

If picked, teenage legspinner Shadab Khan will play India in only his ninth international match, but when he was asked about this momentous game of incredible national and geopolitical importance, he said: "I used to feel the pressure when I saw them play on TV, but now I don't feel any pressure". The pressure is gone, so too the firecrackers, and we're just left with the talk.