India and Pakistan have been playing for seven decades now, but Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 52-ball 82 in Melbourne has will be hailed as one of the finest innings ever played in the contest. But there have been other outstanding performances too…
It is not easy to pick ten innings from the long, intense history of India-Pakistan cricket clashes. The range is vast, from hard-nosed marathon resistances to outrageous slog-fests. To keep things easier, we have restricted entries to one per batter.
Nazar Mohammad: 124* in Lucknow, 1952/53 (Test)
Pakistan had lost their first ever Test match by an innings. This was the second, but Pakistan found themselves more at home than the hosts on the jute-matting wicket. Fazal Mahmood (12-94) bowled out India cheaply twice. In between, Nazar carried his bat through the 515-minute-long Pakistan innings; no individual score in the match was worth even half as much. Pakistan owed much of their first ever Test win to their first Test hundred.
Javed Miandad: 114* in Sharjah, 1986 (ODI)
The innings every Indian fan recalls with dread. Pakistan needed 246, and Miandad was the only one to reach 40, but he got 114 not out, including an iconic last-ball six off Chetan Sharma when Pakistan needed four.
Correlation may not necessarily be causation, but Pakistan held a 20-5 lead in ODIs over India between that six and Miandad’s retirement; the lead drops to 53-50 in other phases in history.
Saleem Malik: 72* in Calcutta, 1986/87 (ODI)
On this list, this is perhaps the innings that comes closest to Kohli’s in spirit. Chasing 239 in 40 overs, Pakistan needed 65 in the last six. Malik took 19 off Maninder Singh’s over and 16 off Kapil Dev’s, reached his fifty in 23 balls, finished on 72 not out from 36 balls, saw Pakistan home in the last over, and left over 90,000 fans shell-shocked.
Sunil Gavaskar: 96 in Bangalore, 1986/87 (Test)
Some of Gavaskar’s greatest innings came against Pakistan, but he saved his best for the last. After four excruciating draws on flat wickets, the authorities decided to break the stalemate by preparing a pitch on which Maninder picked up five wickets in the first session, and batting became largely a lottery as the match proceeded. Even Wasim Akram was reduced to bowling spin.
Chasing a near-impossible 221, Gavaskar batted for over five hours for his 96 (he ‘won’ quite a few byes by withdrawing the bat so late that wicketkeeper Saleem Yousuf had little time to react). India lost by 16 runs, but that was largely because no one else went past 26.
Ijaz Ahmed: 139* in Lahore, 1997/98 (ODI)
India must have had their hopes high after squaring the three-match ODI series. They scored 216 in the decider, but Ijaz took over once Shahid Afridi was done. The savage, almost primal assault would not rank high on aesthetics, but the chase was completed in 26.1 overs, well before fans could return to their television sets after work. He faced only 84 balls, but his cleaver produced 10 fours and nine sixes.
Sachin Tendulkar: 136 in Madras, 1998/99 (Test)
Chasing 271 against Wasim and Waqar, and Saqlain Mushtaq, India were 82-5. There was only one way to go about it, and Tendulkar battled severe back spasms to launch a counterattack for the ages. The back spasms kept getting worse, but Tendulkar kept rising to the occasion, alternating between paddle-sweeping and stepping out, visibly cringing in pain after strokes. He was eventually seventh to fall, on 254; India folded four runs later.
Saeed Anwar: 188* in Calcutta, 1998/99 (Test)
Pakistan had recovered well after being 26-6 in the first innings, but India still got a 38-run lead. Now Anwar took charge. As Javagal Srinath followed his 5-46 in the first innings with 8-86, Anwar stood firm as wickets went down at the other end. From 262-3, Pakistan collapsed to 316, but India could not get Anwar: he carried his bat with 188. Once the immovable object kept the unstoppable object at bay long enough, the Pakistan bowlers sealed a famous 46-run win.
Virender Sehwag: 309 in Multan, 2004 (Test)
India had never won a Test match in Pakistan until their 2004 tour. No Indian had scored a triple-hundred either. Sehwag’s innings helped rectify both. In Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami, there were two bowlers of serious pace. There was also Saqlain. Yet, Sehwag got to his 100 in 107 balls (with a six), 200 in 222 (not with a six), 300 in 364 (again, with a six), and finished with 309 in 375. The pace of his scoring gave the Indian bowlers enough time to pick up 20 wickets.
Rahul Dravid: 270 in Rawalpindi, 2004 (Test)
Dravid fielded through the Pakistan innings of 224. India lost a wicket first ball, so he was out there again. He then batted for 740 minutes – the longest recorded Test innings by an Indian – in the sapping Rawalpindi heat of April. He was nowhere close to his fluent best, but he did enough to bat Pakistan out of the Test match and seal India’s first series win on Pakistan soil. Then he stepped out to field again, in an incredible act of endurance, even by Dravid’s standards.
Virat Kohli: 82* in Melbourne, 2022/23 (T20I)
The innings that led to this piece. On a wicket aiding pace, India became 31-4 in pursuit of 160, but Kohli took charge, pacing his innings, not letting the asking rate soar beyond reach. Then he exploded into two absurd sixes in the 19th over, from Haris Rauf, and hit another in the last over to seal the match in a packed MCG. An innings for a lifetime.
