How an unpredictable Pakistan can breathe life into lopsided India rivalry

It took Pakistan 29 and a half years, and their 13th try, to get the better of India for the first time in all World Cup play. Between 3 March 1992 and 24 October 2021, Pakistan had lost seven 50-over World Cup fixtures on the trot to their fiercest rivals; India also enjoyed a 5-0 record in the T20 World Cup in that period before their neighbours secured their first victory, by a commanding ten wickets in the desert of the United Arab Emirates.

In the year and a half since that night in Dubai, India have extended their 50-over record to 8-0 and their 20-over margin to 6-1 in World Cups. Rivalry? What rivalry, one might ask.

There is no logic behind this combined, lop-sided 14-1 scoreline. It’s one of cricket’s great inexplicables. Different generations of Pakistani cricketers have come up against different generations of Indians, and invariably come up second best. Several of them haven’t carried any individual baggage of the past but seem to have been subjugated by the weight of history, because, really, there is no tangible explanation for this remarkable skew in fortunes when the teams have appeared well matched.

It’s tempting, even lazy, to seek refuge in the term ‘mercurial’, often the preferred adjective for Pakistan. True, they can be unpredictable. True too, that on occasion, they can be their worst enemies. Particularly when they are pushed to a corner, they fight back with ferocity against all-comers. Except India. Somehow, the sight of the Men in Blue seems to psychologically impact them, every succeeding defeat a crushing blow to their aspirations of trying to redress the balance in World Cups.

In Ahmedabad last year in the 50-over World Cup, Pakistan threw away a position of strength in a collective haze of brain-fade, collapsing spectacularly from 155 for two midway through the 30th over to 191 all out. Eight for 36 in 81 deliveries beggared belief. Wickets were tossed away with singular casualness, only one among the last seven reaching double-digits. Buoyed by a massive, pro-partisan crowd, India rattled home with seven wickets in hand and 117 deliveries to spare. It was a proper shellacking, if ever there was one.

This Ahmedabad hammering came exactly a year and 10 days after a heart-wrenching last-ball loss in a group fixture of the T20 World Cup in Melbourne when nearly 90% of a 90,000-strong crowd at the MCG rooted for Rohit Sharma’s men. A Virat Kohli epic kept India in the hunt till the very end, and R Ashwin then bunted the last ball from left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz over mid-off for the winning run, leaving Pakistan in stunned disbelief.

More than anything else, these two outings illustrated the strength of India’s character, the faith in their abilities, their immense belief and the calmness to make smart decisions under pressure – such as Ashwin getting inside the line to elicit a leg-side wide from Nawaz off the scheduled last ball to level scores. When India did the front-running, they were ruthless. When they had to wage an in-the-trenches battle, they didn’t back down. Perhaps there’s a lesson in it for Pakistan.

For Pakistan, a touch more than India, Sunday’s faceoff at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium holds massive significance. Fans on either side of the border will settle for nothing less than a victory, but what once seemed an irrelevant game – even possible, you ask? – from a qualification perspective has assumed an entirely different hue after Pakistan’s Super Over loss to US in Dallas on Thursday. Victory will invigorate Pakistan’s campaign, familiar defeat will push them to the edge of the precipice. Which Pakistan will turn up?

That’s always the question, isn’t it? No matter who the captain is (it’s Babar Azam now, back in the saddle after ceding the reins briefly to Shaheen Shah Afridi) or who the coach is (currently Gary Kirsten, the beloved one-time India head honcho), Pakistan have never been predictable. When you write them off, they come surging back like men possessed. When they are conferred with favouritism, they crash and burn of their own volition. Imagine how boring cricket would be without the Pakistanis.

Is there too much hype around India-Pakistan, the one-way traffic flow when it comes to results notwithstanding? Sure there is. Is this hype without basis, because this is no longer a rivalry in the real sense? How does one answer that? Can fans, in either country, suspend emotion? Can the players themselves view it as just another match? Can it ever cease being the final before the final in every World Cup? You get where we are coming from, right?