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When Pakistan took on India at the start of the Champions Trophy, we all talked about the intensity of the rivalry between the two.
The history, the conflict. How badly Pakistanis wanted to beat their subcontinent co-tenant.
What we don't discuss is how exactly the same can be said for Bangladesh, and for Sri Lanka. When nations are arranged around a larger, wealthier neighbour, resentment is as inevitable as the desire to prove oneself.
When the Sri Lankans pulled off their huge chase against India at The Oval last week, I spent the last 10 overs down with the brass section of the papare band.
"You're still in the tournament," I said to a blue-shirted fan as he hopped from foot to foot.
"The tournament doesn't matter," he said, beaming. "Just this game. Just to beat India."
You cannot say the sentiment goes both ways. India cannot feel a rivalry as deeply with multiple opponents at once.
Such is the privilege of being the elephant among oxen. But for each among the smaller herd, there is only one opponent they burn to take down.
But then, that's also probably part of how India remains unchallenged in the modern era. Aside from the billions of dollars differential in revenue. Coming up against their rival in their opening Champions Trophy game, Pakistan fell apart.
It was the same kind of nervy capitulation Bangladesh mustered in the World T20 last year. Losing three wickets from the last three balls of the match with one run needed to tie was possibly the greatest choke cricket has ever seen.
Bangladesh wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim later made himself a lot of Indian fans by posting a photo of himself in a West Indies jersey, after the Caribbean side knocked out India en route to the title.
Tigers no longer easybeats
But Bangladesh is changing. For so long an afterthought, an easybeat, kind of a running joke when it came to players bolstering their stats, the nation is increasingly coming good as a cricketing power.
A year before that T20 disaster, Bangladesh notched the notable success of winning a One-Day International series against India for the first time. Mustafizur Rahman, a rangy young fast bowler, grabbed five wickets in his debut match and six in his second.
Add those two games to three others, and you have the sum total of Bangladesh wins over India in international cricket. That's five ODIs in the 34 played.
Four in Dhaka plus the famous Caribbean upset in the 2007 World Cup. All nine Test matches and five international T20s have also ended without a Bangladesh win.
So this side was always up against it, tackling India at Edgbaston with another huge and raucous crowd in blue, white, and orange. And Bangladesh lost, predictably, to a team that needed only three batsmen and 40 overs to track down 265.
But what seemed to matter was Bangladesh batted like a real cricket team. Its players don't panic anymore.
From 2 for 31, Mushfiqur and Tamim Iqbal put on 123.
As Kedar Jadhav struck, and regular wickets started to fall, every successive batsman chipped away.
From 5 for 179, the old Bangladesh would have folded for 200. The new lot kept on building, captain Mashrafe Mortaza 30 not out.
Just as the old Bangladesh would have totalled double figures after New Zealand had them 4 for 33, but in this age Shakib-al-Hasan and Mahmudullah struck hundreds to put them into this semi-final.
It isn't Bangladesh's fault they ran into India's batting in imperious mood. As it has been all tournament. The one game India lost was due to batting first and cruising to 320 rather than pushing to 350. Put India in a run chase and it's almost guaranteed to be game over.
Virat Kohli is, we know, the master of pursuit – he now averages 66.44 in run chases and 92.8 when India wins.
Strong opening sets up Indian chase
But in this tournament it has been as much about the opening combination, since the end of various dalliances has seen it revert to Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan.
The pair do it every game, to the extent it's almost boring. They made 136 against Pakistan, 138 against Sri Lanka, and even when Sharma fell against South Africa with the score at 23, Dhawan went on to make 78.
Against Bangladesh it was another 87 to start the chase, with Rohit surging to 123 not out by the time he was done.
Mustafizur, the architect of that series win in Dhaka, was belted out of the attack at nearly nine runs an over.
Mortaza was excellent, with 30 dot balls in a spell of eight overs straight, trying to limit the damage.
But India just waited him out, making up the runs from Taskin Ahmed and Rubel Hossain at 7 per over. No Bangladeshi besides Mortaza went at less than a run a ball.
Sharma drove all day. From backward point to mid off. Through cover especially. Once, stylishly, through mid on.
The bowlers kept looking for his edge, he kept presenting his middle. Often the shots split fieldsmen, or darted by them. Until the hooked six for his hundred, it was an innings of supreme control.
In that shadow, Kohli just worked away. A duck against Sri Lanka aside, his tournament has seen him not out for 76, 81 and 96. His openers have been the only thing preventing his 28th century.
Nothing in this game was overstated, yet in the end his 96 came from 78 balls. His ability to accumulate is hard to process, his pace hard to believe. Last week Hashim Amla became the fastest batsman to 7,000 ODI runs; in this game Kohli was fastest to 8,000.
Solve that problem as a bowler if you will. Perhaps one set of bowlers can, and perhaps they play for Pakistan.
They've just done the same against South Africa, England and Sri Lanka. The best of one discipline against the best of the other.
Along with that scene of the dream final. The great rivalry. The generator of cliché.
But in the meantime, Bangladesh will be stewing on the result, dreaming their own dreams of their next chance to reverse it. Remember there's never just one team wanting to take India down.
Topics: sport, cricket, onedayseries, england, bangladesh, india, pakistan, sri-lanka
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