India leads the series in T20 matches, having won nine out of three.
At the T20 World Cup in New York on Sunday (tomorrow), arch-rivals Pakistan and India will square off for the thirteenth time in the shortest format of cricket.
Only in international competitions can the two nuclear-armed countries square off against one another because of political concerns; India prevailed in their most recent meeting, a 2022 T20 World Cup match in Melbourne.
India has won nine out of their three T20 matches thus far, but they have evened the score in their previous four meetings.
Five iconic India-Pakistan T20 matches are remembered by AFP.
The inaugural Twenty20 match between India and Pakistan in Durban in 2007 finished in a thrilling draw that was followed by a bowl-out, which is cricket’s version of a football penalty shoot-out.
In the first T20 World Cup, Pakistan chose to field in the group stage and held India to 141-9.
After Pakistan’s reply ended with the scores tied, India captain MS Dhoni outwitted the opposition by selecting non-specialists to attempt to hit the wicket instead of regular bowlers who are accustomed to luring batters into offering catches.
Top-order pacers Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul, and spinner Shahid Afridi of Pakistan missed, but part-time bowlers Virender Sehwag, Robin Uthappa, and elite spinner Harbhajan Singh all struck the stumps.
A super over currently serves as the tiebreaker in place of the bowl-out, making it the only World Cup match to be decided by one.
The two rivals never faced each other in a final until they met again in the Johannesburg final ten days after their first-ever World Cup group stage match in 2007.
Pakistan was on course to win, but Misbah-ul-Haq’s tenacious batting kept the goal in sight despite their frequent wicket losses.
Pakistan needed 13 runs in the last over to overcome Joginder Sharma, an unexpected Indian bowling option.
After a wide and a dot ball, Misbah struck a six to require six from four balls, but he chose to take a scoop shot that gained more height instead of distance.
When S. Sreesanth got hold of it at short fine-leg, it set off a flurry of celebrations in India, who went on to win the World Cup by five runs.
In a 2021 T20 World Cup group match in Dubai, India was initially favoured, but Pakistan’s speed demon Shaheen Shah Afridi quickly upset the odds.
Tall, fast with the left arm As he shook the Indian top order, Shaheen dismissed opener Rohit Sharma for a first-ball duck, finishing with a 3-31 score.
In the last over, Virat Kohli attempted to rally with 57 but was defeated by Shaheen.
Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam scored 68 and opener Mohammad Rizwan hit 79 as they easily defeated India’s bowling assault by 10 wickets, winning their first-ever World Cup match against their bitterest opponents.
After losing to its rivals in the group round, Pakistan travelled back to Dubai to play India in the Asia Cup Super Four in 2022.
With Kohli’s sixty to help them reach 181-7, India might have scored more if Pakistani spinners Shadab Khan and Muhammad Nawaz hadn’t bowled with discipline.
With one ball remaining, Pakistan managed to win by five wickets thanks to a brilliant 20-ball 42 from left-hander Nawaz, who had earlier delivered figures of 1-25.
The two rivals most recently faced off in a Twenty20, with an electrifying crowd of 90,000 spectators at Melbourne Cricket Ground for a 2022 T20 World Cup group encounter.
After Pakistan reached 159-8 and India was struggling at 31-4, Virat Kohli produced a career-defining performance of 82 off 53 balls, sharing a crucial 113-run partnership with Hardik Pandya.
India needed to score 31 off the last 12 balls, but in the 19th over, Kohli struck two sixes off Haris Rauf, a fast bowler, and India won by four wickets on the last ball.
Header image: A composite picture of India’s Virat Kohli and Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi.
