India and Pakistan will clash in New York today(9th June 2024) for T20 world cup. It will 13th time in the cricket’s shortest format. Both nations only face each other in international tournaments due to political issues and lastly faced to each other in a 2022 T20 World cup in Melbourne, when India won. Total of 12 encounters in between India and Pakistan in T20 international match India wins nine but the honours are even in their last four matches.
Let’s take a look back at five memorable India-Pakistan T20 matches:
Wily Dhoni
The first T20 encounter between India and Pakistan in 2007 at Durban ended in a dramatic tie before being decided in a bowl-out–cricket’s equivalent of football’s penalty shoot-out. In the inaugural T20 world cup Pakistan elected to field in the group match and restricted India to 141-9.
Indian skipper MS Dhoni with the scores level at the end of Pakistan’s reply then outfoxed the opposition by choosing non-specialists to try to hit the wicket rather than regular bowlers used to tempting batsmen to offer catches.
Spinner Harbhajan Singh, part-time bowlers Virender Sehwag,Robbin Uthappa all hit the stumps, while Pakistan top-line pacemen Yasir Arafat ,Umar Gul and spinner Shahid Afridi all missed.
It was only time a world cup match has been decided by a bowl-out, with the tiebreaker now it is replaced by a super over. After meeting in a group stage of that inaugural world cup in 2007,both teams went on to face each other again after 10 days in the final in Johannesburg.
Set 158 for victory, Pakistan lost wickets regularly but Misbah-ul-Haq kept the target in sight with his courageous batting.
Pakistan reached the final over needing 13 runs against Joginder Sharma. Misbah hit a six after a wide and a dot ball, to need six from four balls only to opt for a scoop shot that got more height than distance.
It landed in the hands of S. Sreesanth at short fine-leg to trigger wild Indian celebrations as they won the world cup by 5 runs.
Shaheen Strikes
India was started as most predictive winner in 2021 T20 World cup group match in Dubai but Pakistani player Shaheen Afridi soon upset the predictions. Shaheen sent back opener Rohit Sharma for a first-ball duck as he rattled top-order batting line up finishing with 3-31.
Virat Kohli tried to recover with 57 but fell to Shaheen in the penultimate over. Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam made 68 and Mohammad Rizwan 79 as Pakistan took the India bowling attack very lightly to a 10-wicket win—-their first ever world cup victory against their most competitive country.
All-round Nawaz
In the 2022 Asia cup super Four clash Pakistan returned to Dubai to face India after they were beaten by the neighbours in the group stage. India scored 181-7 with Virat Kohli ‘s 60 but total was not more in front of some disciplined bowling by Pakistan spinners Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz.
‘King Kohli’ at MCG
Both India and Pakistan in most recently in a T20 met in an electric atmosphere at a packed 90000-capacity Melbourne cricket Ground for a 2022 T20 world cup group match. Pakistan scored 159-8 and had India in trouble at 31-4 before Virat Kohli played aknock for the ages with an unbeaten 82 off 53 balls, putting on a key stand of 113 with Hardik Pandya.
India needed 31 off the final 12 balls but Virat Kohli hit two sixes off pace bowler Haris Rauf in the 19th over and India won by four wickets on the final ball.