Manjit Thakur / New Delhi

Cricket lovers would remember the scene after India registered its first victory in the T-20 World Cup in 2007.

India batted first in the title match under the leadership of its young captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Gautam Gambhir contributed 75 to India’s firm total of 157 runs at the loss of 5 wickets. Pakistan fought till the end with Misbah-ul-Haq playing fiercely creating an impressing he might take away the victory from India’s hands.

Dhoni was calm and positioned behind the wicket when he caught the ball thrown by Joginder Sharma. Fans watching the match on TV all over the world were awestruck at Dhoni’s catching that unlikely ball. “How did he do it,” was the question on everyone’s lips.

At that time, cricket lovers knew little about Dhoni's talent. However, in the last over, Misbah-ul-Haq tried to scoop a shot off Joginder Sharma but Dhoni had deposited S Sreesanth at short fine leg and he caught the ball with an unmatched alacrity. Sreesanth caught the ball with finesse by jumping with the precision of an eagle.

Dhoni lead India to a grandiose victory in the first-ever T20 World Cup. India had defeated Pakistan for the second time in the tournament.

In the league matches, high voltage cricket was played in Durban. India had given a target of 141 runs to Pakistan in that match but despite having three wickets in hand, Pakistan could not manage to score runs.

The teams were tied till the end and the umpired imposed the ball out rule to decide the winner. The ball out meant that the bowlers of both the teams had to bowl six balls each.

Three Indian players hit the stumps while not a single Pakistani bowler could do so. MS Dhoni's young team took a 1-0 lead, defeating Pakistan for the first time in this thrilling match.

This historic backgrounder can give readers a perspective while sitting in front of your television sets to watch the mahakumbha of cricket on Sunday – the clash between two sub-continental cricket teams as in the T-20 matches.

This will be the sixth India-Pakistan clash in the history of the T20 World Cup and their eighth one in the international T20. The overall record of Pakistan is bad against India in all these matches.

So far, there have been a total of 8 clashes in International T20 between the two countries including the first-ever twin clashes in the maiden ever T20 World Cup in Durban in 2007.

In the 14 years since then, the two teams have played eight matches. Apart from the T20 World Cup, both played only once in the Asia Cup and once a two-match bilateral series on Indian soil.

Pakistan has not won a single match out of the last five matches against India. It’s an only victory against India was in the year 2012-13 at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. In all of the other clashes, Pakistan has returned heartbroken.

In T20 cricket, the teams of India and Pakistan met for the last time in the year 2016 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. In this rain-affected match, Pakistan scored 118 runs for 5 wickets in 18 overs. Team India evened this score in 15.5 overs, thanks to Virat Kohli's unbeaten 55 off 37. Virat was given the man of the match award for this brilliant innings.

In the year 2016, during the Asia Cup match played between India and Pakistan in Dhaka, the Pakistani team was bundled out for just 83 runs. In such a situation, while chasing the target, Virat Kohli won by playing an innings of 49 runs in 51 balls. He was adjudged Man of the Match for his daredevil innings.

Batting first, Pakistan scored 130 runs for 7 wickets in the 2014 World Cup match against India in Dhaka. India achieved the target of 131 runs thanks to the explosive innings of Rohit Sharma (24), Shikhar Dhawan (30), Virat Kohli 36 (32), and Suresh Raina 35 (28). Amit Mishra was adjudged man of the match for his excellent spin bowling.

In the T20 World Cup hosted by Sri Lanka in the year 2012, India won the match against Pakistan. Batting first, the Pakistan team was bundled out for 130 runs in 19.4 overs. Lakshmipathy Balaji was India's most successful bowler as he took 3 wickets, while Yuvraj Singh and Ravichandran Ashwin got 2 wickets each. India achieved the target of 131 runs to win the match, thanks to Virat Kohli's blistering innings of 78 runs off 61 balls. He was adjudged man of the match for this innings.

Team India's swashbuckling batsman Yuvraj Singh defeated the Pakistan team by 11 runs in Ahmedabad during the 2012-13 tour of India. India scored 192 runs for 5 wickets, thanks to Yuvraj Singh's brilliant score of 72 runs in 36 balls.

Besides Yuvraj, Dhoni scored 33, Virat 27, Rahane 28, and Gambhir scored 21 runs in the match. Chasing the target of 193 runs, the Pakistani team could score 181 runs in 7 wickets and these included 41 runs of Nasir Jamshed and 55 runs in 26 balls of Mohammad Hafeez. Pakistan lost the match.

Yuvraj Singh was adjudged man of the match.

Virat Kohli stands on the top of the list of 5 batsmen who have scored the most runs in the India-Pakistan matches in the World Cup. He has scored 254 runs in 6 matches, while Shoaib Malik comes on the second position with 164 runs. Three Indian players are included in this list of top-5 batsmen.