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India, Pakistan in ODIs

September 18, 2004 22:03 IST
While Indian and Pakistan teams are gearing up for all-important Champions Trophy match, we take a look at the figures of past encounters between the two countries. Overall Pakistan enjoys an upper hand over India, but things are pretty close in the last ten encounters as is evident from the following table.
  Mts Ind won Pak won NR
Overall 93 33 56 4
Last 10 10 4 6 0
in England 1 1 0 0
India under Ganguly 11 5 6 0
Pakistan under Inzamam 7 4 3 0

In the tournaments comprising of five or more countries, India and Pakistan have played 13 matches against each other and both sides have won six matches each with one match producing no result.

A very interesting pattern has emerged in last 10 matches between these two sides. Both sides have won two successive matches and then suffered defeat in next two. Going by this trend India should win the all-important match of the Champions Trophy.

Date Venue Status Winner Scores
26-03-2000 Sharjah D/N Pak 98 runs Pak 272-3, Ind 174-9
03-06-2000 Dhaka D/N Pak 44 runs Pak 295-7, Ind 251
01-03-2003 Centurion Day Ind 6 wickets Pak 273-7, Ind 276-4
13-03-2004 Karachi Day Ind 5 runs Ind 349-7, Pak 344-8
16-03-2004 Rawalpindi D/N Pak 12 runs Pak 329-6, Ind 317
19-03-2004 Peshawar Day Pak 4 wickets Ind 244-9, Pak 247-6
21-03-2004 Lahore D/N Ind 5 wickets Pak 293-9, Ind 294-5
24-03-2004 Lahore D/N Ind 40 runs Ind 293-7, Pak 253
25-07-2004 Colombo RPS D/N Pak 59 runs Pak 300-9, Ind 241-8
21-08-2004 Amstelveen Day Pak 66 runs Pak 192-6, Ind 127

A comparative study of performances of players of two countries furnishes a very startling fact. When it comes to playing against each other, the Pakistani batsmen play better while Indians under-perform. Of all the current players playing in Champions Trophy, Sehwag's average has dipped the most. Farhat's position at the top of the following table can be attributed to the fact that he has played only one game against India.

Only one Indian top-order batsman has been able to raise his game against the arch-rivals, while as many as four Pakistanis top order batsmen have improved their performances in big-matches.

The non-performers

Batsman Overall Ave. Ave. in Indo-Pak matches Diff.
Imran Farhat (Pak) 36.11 24.00 -12.11
Virender Sehwag (Ind) 32.24 22.67 -9.57
VVS Laxman (Ind) 31.87 23.50 -8.37
Rahul Dravid (Ind) 39.14 30.97 -8.17
Yousuf Youhana (Pak) 41.91 36.44 -5.47
Mohammad Kaif (Ind) 30.70 27.00 -3.70
Abdur Razzaq (Pak) 30.22 26.77 -3.45
Yasir Hameed (Pak) 42.72 39.71 -3.01
Sourav Ganguly (Ind) 42.19 40.11 -2.08

Big match men

Batsman Overall Ave. Ave. in Indo-Pak matches Diff.
Shoaib Malik (Pak) 30.11 47.57 17.46
Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pak) 38.97 43.57 4.60
Yuvraj Singh (Ind) 29.59 33.14 3.55
Moin Khan (Pak) 23.44 26.83 3.39
Shahid Afridi (Pak) 23.38 25.62 2.24

There is some good news for India at the bowling front though. While Sehwag, Agarkar and Nehra have performed poorly, Ganguly, Kumble, Yuvraj and Pathan's average has improved. On the economy front though, all barring Ganguly and Kumble have taken a beating.

India, however, can take solace from the fact that performances of Pakistani bowlers have also dipped against India. Other than Shoaib Akhtar, all bowlers have conceded more runs per over against India than other countries. Naved-ul-Hassan is the only bowler with better average against India than his career figures, but this was only because he managed to take 3 wickets in a match in which he was hit to all corners of the ground.

Player Overall Ave. Ave v Pak Diff Overall RpO RpO v Pak Diff
Agarkar 28.09 40.74 -12.65 5.13 5.73 -0.60
Ganguly 35.89 26.86 9.03 5.03 4.64 0.39
Kumble 30.70 24.15 6.55 4.28 4.26 0.02
Nehra 34.02 38.33 -4.31 4.67 6.05 -1.38
Pathan 25.88 22.91 2.97 5.05 5.36 -0.31
Sehwag 39.69 77.00 -37.31 5.21 7.00 -1.79
Yuvraj 38.59 34.00 4.59 4.95 5.23 -0.28

Player Overall Ave. Ave v Ind Diff Overall RpO RpO v Ind Diff
Abdur Razzaq 28.59 29.88 -1.29 4.48 5.01 -0.53
Mohammad Sami 25.35 32.08 -6.73 4.82 5.95 -1.13
Naved-ul-Hasan 38.57 24.33 14.24 5.51 7.30 -1.79
Shahid Afridi 37.27 49.77 -12.50 4.60 4.62 -0.02
Shoaib Akhtar 22.51 26.41 -3.90 4.56 4.45 0.11
Shoaib Malik 33.71 39.44 -5.73 4.30 5.00 -0.70

Approaching milestones:

Also read:

- Gavaskar may play against Pakistan
- Indians can't hook: Woolmer
- Sehwag must play his natural game: Wright
- Tough task for India
- Woolmer banking on fast bowlers
- Balaji out of Australia, SA series

Rajneesh Gupta