India vs Pakistan. Pakistan vs India. Think of the subcontinent’s great sporting rivalry, and images will flash immediately into the subconscious: Javed Miandad pulling out an all-timer of a last ball finish off Chetan Sharma. Sachin Tendulkar uppercutting Shoaib Akhtar out of the bowling attack. S Sreesanth settling nervously under a mistimed Misbah Ul Haq scoop. Chepauk rising to its feet to honour Saeed Anwar. Virat Kohli swatting Haris Rauf over long-on in sensational fashion… The one thing all those images have in common? Cricket.
At first glance, it’s always been about cricket, just like it will be on Sunday, Feb 23. Google “best India vs Pakistan matches” and a list of cricket matches will pop up. Netflix have a documentary up and running on the cricket rivalry. It’s just what strikes everyone the moment you hear the phrase ‘India vs Pakistan’. But there’s so much more to this sporting rivalry and we’re here to remind you of the best of the best India vs Pakistan matchups we’ve seen in sports outside cricket in the 21st century.
India vs Pakistan takes over the Olympics
We start with arguably the greatest show these two nations have ever put on at a global sporting event.
Imagine telling someone just a decade ago that India vs Pakistan would define an Olympic track and field final, and you would have been laughed out of the room. In Paris 2024, though, the two nations did just that.
Coming into the men’s javelin event at the Paris Olympics, India’s Neeraj Chopra was defending champion and firm favourite. On the night of the event, though, up stepped his friend from across the border, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem. What ensued was spectacular, one of the greatest Olympic track and field finals of all time — Neeraj threw the javelin the second longest he’d ever thrown it, and Arshad bested him twice.
Top videos from Paris 2024 | 7️⃣ |
������ Arshad Nadeem’s victory in the men’s javelin final.
An epic moment in Olympic history. �� When Arshad Nadeem won gold and broke the Olympic record with a superb throw of 92.97m.#BestOf2024 pic.twitter.com/v9e4ZpktRD
– The Olympic Games (@Olympics) December 25, 2024
With the most casual of runups, Arshad jogged in and hurled the javelin past the hallowed 90m mark both times as he defeated all odds and took Pakistan’s first ever individual Olympic gold. Neeraj took silver as the neighbours finished 1-2.
Epic doesn’t quite cover it.
A comeback for the ages on astroturf
Till astroturf took over in the early 90s, India vs Pakistan had always defined world hockey. In the 2003 Champions Trophy in Amsterdam, they staged a classic to remind the world of what once was. It was the last league stage match, and India were only playing for pride having lost three of their previous four games. Well, pride and being a killjoy for your greatest rivals: for Pakistan were a win away from reaching the final.
As form dictated, Pakistan started the stronger, by far. They took a 2-0 lead early on thanks to an instinctive Rehan Butt finish (off a Sohail Abbas PC) and a cracking field goal from skipper Nadeem Ahmed. A Jugraj Singh thunderbolt of a dragflick made it 2-1 but Pakistan underlined their dominance by making it 3-1 thanks to a superb in-circle deflection from Mudassar Ali. With 1:06 left in the first half, though, India raced away on a rare counter, won a PC and Jugraj repeated his trick to make it 3-2.
Pakistan, though, made the opening bits of the second half their own and an Abbas special made it 4-2. Surely that was it… except form and game state so often mean nothing when it comes to India vs Pakistan.
Dhanraj Pillay’s trickery won India a PC and after some chaotic pinball, Deepak Thakur made it 4-3 with 16 and a half minutes left. Another rapid counter made it 4-4 after Prabhjot Singh scuffed in a finish off a Deepak pass within seconds. Six minutes later, a Gagan Ajit Singh strike from an acute angle made it 5-4. Now desperate, Pakistan threw everyone forward – and got picked off with remarkable accuracy. Gagan made it 6 after a sensational dribble through half the Pakistan defence before a Dhanraj-run counter was finished off by Deepak to make it 7.
They held on for the last five minutes and from 1-3 down, India had beaten Pakistan 7-4… and ended their chances of making the final along the way. What more could they ask for?
India-Pakistan goes filmi at the Asian Games
Squash had always been Pakistan’s great domain. It was the one sport in which they were leaps and bounds better than their neighbours, and for large swathes of the 80s and 90s, anyone else in the world. In 2023, though, the equation was rather different.
When India faced Pakistan in the final of the Huangzhou Asian Games, India were favourites. But even though Pakistan had slipped off the elite ranks of squash playing nations a while ago, they were having none of it.
In a dramatic match 1, Pakistan’s Nasir Iqbal beat India’s Mahesh Mangaonkar before India levelled things after Saurav Ghosal summarily dismissed Muhammad Asim Khan in a much more sober match 2. In the decider, Noor Zaman was two points away from gold for Pakistan. Twice. Both times, Abhay Singh reeled him back and then clutched it at the very end to give gold to India.
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– Doordarshan Sports (@ddsportschannel) September 30, 2023
It was as dramatic a match as you could get: anger, pain, tantrums, uncontrolled joy… This was as physical a manifestation of the intensity fans feel when they face each other as has ever been seen.
As Aaditya Narayan wrote here, the final was quite something else: ‘Demanding an in-match massage from your opponent, leaning against the glass wall in the classic Bollywood hero’s distress pose, and some of the most exaggerated expressions of surprise you will see.’
Film scripts having nothing on the best India-Pakistan matches.
A marathon end to a tennis classic
2006 was the first time in more than three decades that Pakistan and India faced each other on a tennis court. Drawn together in the Davis Cup first-round playoff of the Asia/Oceania Zone, they played out an utter classic in Mumbai – a city that a Pakistan sporting team had not visited for a decade and a half after the unsettling scenes of a dug-up Wankhede pitch in 1991.
Off the field, all was quiet, though, as Pakistan’s in-form Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi started things off with a 7-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Rohan Bopanna. Prakash Amritraj levelled things up for India with a tight 7-6, 7-6, 6-4 win over Aqeel Khan. The great pairing of Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes brushed aside Aqeel and Asim Shafik 6-2, 6-3, 6-1. Aisam (Pakistan’s one-man army at that point) then dug deep to beat Prakash 6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Four matches, 2-2, and it was time for the decider. In Pakistan’s corner, Aqeel Khan. In India’s… Leander Paes. It ought to have been a non-contest. Paes was a proper doubles specialist by then, but his singles pedigree far outweighed his opponent. And that’s how the match started, with Leander on top, taking the first two sets 6-4, 7-6. The tiebreaker in the second, though, ought to have been a clue: for Aqeel was about to remind everyone why on-paper means nothing when it comes to Pakistan vs India.
A 6-3 win in the third set was swiftly followed by a 6-0, a bagel helped along by the cramps that had made Leander almost a stationary spectator to proceedings. With the tie at 2-2, the deciding match had now gone to 2-2.
Leander saved three break points in game 1 of the fifth set, quick hands rescuing tired legs, and broke Aqeel early. That would be enough as the young Pakistani crumbled under the intense pressure. After 3 hours and forty long minutes, Leander had won 6-4, 7-6, 3-6, 0-6, 6-1. India had won 3-2 in the most dramatic fashion.
India vs Pakistan becomes India-and-Pakistan vs the world
In 2007, the world of sport saw something no one ever thought they’d see: an Indian and a Pakistani joining forces to take on the world. Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi sent waves with their doubles pairing, reaching the 2010 US Open final, winning five ATP tour titles (including a Masters 1000) and reaching a high of world no. 9 in the rankings.
On court, Rohan’s booming power and ground strokes matched up perfectly with Aisam’s skill with the serve and volley. Off it, they made for a remarkable sight, this “Indo-Pak express”. For Rohan and Aisam, though, it was straightforward: they were friends, and they had far more in common than they had differences. The partnership made perfect sense.
“Well, all I can say playing with him is a great pleasure. Sports blurs boundaries, nationalities, and religion,” Rohan would say in 2012. “Most of the people, especially those who have knowledge of India-Pakistan history, were surprised to see both of us playing together. Some thought it is a sort of publicity-seeking move and others predicted that the partnership will not last long or will end in acrimony. All the naysayers were proved wrong.”
“Sports can be used to mend fences and bring people together,” Aisam would say right after their 2010 US Open final.
In one remarkable stroke, they had transformed India vs Pakistan into India and Pakistan. As Rohan said on another occasion: “All of a sudden we had two countries cheering for one team and that was a big positive feeling for us.”
