India-Pakistan: Cricket's greatest rivalry and its defining moments

At least until the Indian cricket team's fractious tour of Pakistan in 1978, after a gap of 17 years, it was field hockey - not cricket- that stirred the emotions of people

On Sunday in Dubai, India and Pakistan will renew their sporting rivalry in another International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament. That they do not play each other in bilateral series is unfortunate, but hardly new. At least until the Indian cricket team’s fractious tour of Pakistan in 1978, after a gap of 17 years, it was field hockey — not cricket— that stirred the emotions of sports enthusiasts on both sides of the border. Cricketers eked out boring draws — only three of the 15 Tests that the two sides played between 1952 and 1961 ended in a result, with India winning two. The Indian cricket team’s tours of Pakistan in late 1978, and again in 1982-83, transformed the easy camaraderie that had existed between the two teams in the 1950s, when at least three players had represented both national teams in the bitter no-holds barred contest that would define the rivalry over the next three decades. 

  When the Indian team landed in Pakistan in September 1978, it least expected the cricket field to turn into a virtual war zone for Bishan Singh Bedi, India’s captain. But that’s precisely what happened, leading him to concede a One Day International from a winning position.  He chose to do so rather than subject his batsmen to unfair umpiring, constant abuse from Pakistani players, and a barrage of short-pitched deliveries aimed at their bodies. 

  The two countries had last played a bilateral series in 1961, and the two wars that the neighbours had fought in the interregnum probably added to the on-field bitterness. Not just the visiting Indian journalists, their Pakistani counterparts blamed their team for souring the tour. India lost the Test and ODI series comprehensively. Such was the fervour in Pakistan that the government announced a holiday when their team won the second Test— its first win over India in 26 years. Over the next two decades, there were numerous iconic performances whenever the two teams met. While Pakistan did get the better of India in both Tests and ODIs, India also had its share of memorable moments. It defeated Pakistan twice in the World Series Cup Down Under in 1985, including in the final, or bowled out its rival for 87 when it had set a target of a paltry 125 in a match in Sharjah in early 1985, a year before the famous Javed Miandad last-ball six off Chetan Sharma.  Pakistan’s India tour of 1986-87 witnessed two of the most remarkable innings of that era, Salim Malik’s 36-ball 72, which won Pakistan an ODI in Calcutta from an impossible situation, and Sunil Gavaskar’s valiant 96 in the Bangalore Test, which India lost by just 16 runs. India’s tour of Pakistan in 1989 saw the rise of Sachin Tendulkar, then just 16, who stood tall against the fierce pace of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Imran Khan.

  The three-part Netflix documentary, The Greatest Rivalry: India versus Pakistan, focusing primarily on the 1999 to 2008 period, has missed out on these and several other iconic moments in the India-Pakistan rivalry, its genesis, the careers and heroes that were made and unmade, or even the immediate context of India’s 1983 World Cup win. It was a victory that changed Indian and world cricket, but in the immediate context, it had redeemed India’s cricketers who had returned battered and bruised from Pakistan in February 1983. Ever since, India has had the better of Pakistan in ICC ODIs, even as it routinely lost to Pakistan at home, away, and at the Sharjah cricket ground in the UAE during the 1980s and 90s.

  Until at least 2004, when India won a bilateral series in Pakistan, ICC World Cups healed the wounds it suffered in bilateral series against its neighbours — and quelled the inevitable requiems about how its cricketers lacked killer instinct. Of the Tests that the two have played, India have won nine and Pakistan 12. India has lost three Tests at home: By 16 runs (Bengaluru, 1987), 12 runs (Chennai, 1999), and 46 runs (Kolkata, 1999). That started to change when Indian batters took the battle to Pakistani pacers, whether Ajay Jadeja’s onslaught against Waqar Younis in the Bengaluru quarter final of the 1996 World Cup, or Tendulkar’s upper-cut six off Shoaib Akhtar at Centurion in the 2003 World Cup and Virender Sehwag’s heroics in Multan in 2004. 

  The India-Pakistan cricket rivalry could do with a more in-depth documentary to capture Aqib Javed’s hat-trick in a match in Sharjah in 1991, Sourav Ganguly singlehandedly securing an ODI series win for India in Toronto in 1997, which set him on course to become one of India’s greatest limited-overs batsmen and a useful medium pacer, Saeed Anwar’s 192 in a match in Chennai in 1997 and Hrishikesh Kanitkar's swipe off Saqlain Mushtaq under fading light in Dhaka in January 1998.