India, Pakistan in ODIs

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:

• Inzamam-ul-Haq needs 23 runs to become second player after Sachin Tendulkar to complete 10,000 runs in ODIs
• Shahid Afridi needs 2 runs to complete 4,000 runs in ODIs and become first Pakistani with an allround double of 4,000 runs & 100 wickets
• Virender Sehwag needs 2 runs to complete 3,000 runs in ODIs
• Sehwag also needs one wicket to complete his 50 wickets in ODIs
• Ajit Agarkar needs 23 runs to complete 1,000 runs in ODIs
• Agarkar also needs 4 wickets to complete 200 wickets in ODIs
• Kumble needs 3 wickets to become leading wicket-taker for India v Pakistan surpassing Srinath's tally of 54
• Afridi needs one run to complete his 1,000 runs v India
• Inzamam will equal Ijaz Ahmed's record of most appearances for Pakistan v India

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