Few cricket fixtures carry the history, pressure and global attention of india vs pakistan. For decades, a meeting between the two sides has felt bigger than an ordinary international, whether it happens in a World Cup, the Asia Cup or the Champions Trophy.
The numbers also tell two different stories. Pakistan retains an advantage in the historical overall record, built largely through Tests and ODIs, while India has established a commanding advantage in T20Is and recent major-tournament meetings. As of February 2026, the teams had played 212 men’s internationals across Tests, ODIs and T20Is.
Quick answer: In the men’s india vs pakistan head-to-head record through February 2026, Pakistan leads the historical overall win count, while India leads strongly in T20Is and has dominated recent ICC tournament encounters. Their latest men’s meeting came at the 2026 T20 World Cup, where India defeated Pakistan by 61 runs in Colombo.
india vs pakistan Head-to-Head Record in All Formats
The overall numbers need context because the rivalry stretches back to 1952 and the teams no longer meet regularly in bilateral cricket.
| Format | Matches | India Wins | Pakistan Wins | Draw/No Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tests | 59 | 9 | 12 | 38 |
| ODIs | 136 | 58 | 73 | 5 |
| T20Is | 17 | 14 | 3 | 0 |
| Total | 212 | 81 | 88 | 43 |
These figures show why asking simply “Who has won more, India or Pakistan?” can be misleading.
Pakistan’s 88 victories give it the historical overall lead over India’s 81. Most of that advantage comes from ODI cricket, where Pakistan enjoyed particularly strong periods in earlier decades. India, however, has a huge 14-3 advantage in T20 internationals.
Quick takeaway: Pakistan leads the complete historical win tally, but India has been much stronger in the modern T20 era and recent high-profile meetings.
India vs Pakistan Test Record
Test cricket is where the story began.
India and Pakistan played their first Test in Delhi in October 1952. India, captained by Lala Amarnath, won by an innings and 70 runs.
Across 59 Tests:
- Pakistan won 12
- India won 9
- 38 were drawn
Pakistan therefore holds the advantage in Test victories.
The most striking statistic, though, is the number of draws. Thirty-eight of 59 Tests ended without a winner, or roughly 64% of their meetings.
Why Haven’t India and Pakistan Played a Test Recently?
The Test head-to-head has effectively been frozen since December 2007, when their last Test ended in a draw in Bengaluru.
Political and diplomatic tensions have drastically reduced bilateral cricket between the countries. Instead of regular home-and-away series, most modern meetings take place in multinational competitions.
That matters when comparing eras. The Test record largely represents an older chapter of the rivalry, while today’s India-Pakistan cricket is overwhelmingly associated with limited-overs tournaments.
india vs pakistan ODI Head-to-Head Record
ODI cricket produced many of the rivalry’s most memorable battles.
The sides first met in a One Day International in Quetta on October 1, 1978. India won that match by four runs.
The historical ODI record is:
| ODI Record | Figure |
|---|---|
| Matches | 136 |
| India wins | 58 |
| Pakistan wins | 73 |
| No results | 5 |
Pakistan’s 73-58 advantage is the main reason it remains ahead in the combined all-format win tally.
For someone familiar only with recent India-Pakistan cricket, that can look surprising.
Pakistan was a formidable ODI force during periods when bilateral matches were considerably more frequent. Players such as Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Javed Miandad and Inzamam-ul-Haq were part of generations that helped build that historical advantage.
India’s more recent era has featured names including Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, with India becoming particularly successful against Pakistan in major ICC competitions.
The 2025 Champions Trophy Meeting
A good example of that modern trend came in Dubai on February 23, 2025.
Pakistan made 241 after batting first. Saud Shakeel scored 62 and Mohammad Rizwan made 46, while Kuldeep Yadav took 3 for 40 for India.
India replied with 244 for 4 in 42.3 overs to win by six wickets. Virat Kohli finished unbeaten on 100, while Shreyas Iyer contributed 56.
The match reinforced a recurring modern pattern: Pakistan retains the better historical ODI head-to-head record, but India has frequently prevailed in recent global-tournament encounters.
india vs pakistan T20 Head-to-Head Record
The T20I numbers reverse the historical pattern dramatically.
Through February 2026:
| T20I Record | Figure |
|---|---|
| Matches | 17 |
| India wins | 14 |
| Pakistan wins | 3 |
India therefore has the clear advantage in men’s T20 internationals.
Their first T20I meeting came at the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in Durban in September 2007.
The scores finished level, but this was before the Super Over became cricket’s standard method for settling tied T20 matches. India won the subsequent bowl-out.
That tournament produced an even bigger encounter just days later: the 2007 T20 World Cup final.
India defeated Pakistan by five runs in Johannesburg to become the inaugural men’s T20 world champion. That match remains one of the defining moments in the rivalry.
What Happened in the 2026 T20 World Cup Match?
The latest men’s meeting as of September 2026 took place at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on February 15, 2026.
India scored 175/7 before bowling Pakistan out for 114 in 18 overs, winning by 61 runs.
Ishan Kishan was Player of the Match after an explosive 77 from 40 balls, including ten fours and three sixes. Saim Ayub took 3 for 25 for Pakistan.
That result further strengthened India’s advantage in the T20I head-to-head.
India vs Pakistan World Cup Record
This is where the distinction between the overall rivalry and tournament rivalry becomes especially important.
Pakistan’s superior historical overall record does not translate into superior World Cup results.
India has enjoyed an extraordinary level of success against Pakistan in both the ODI and T20 World Cups. Across ICC World Cup meetings through the 2026 T20 World Cup, India has overwhelmingly controlled the matchup.
ODI World Cup Meetings
India’s dominance in the 50-over World Cup began with their first World Cup encounter in 1992.
Over subsequent tournaments, players such as Sachin Tendulkar, Venkatesh Prasad, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma delivered defining performances.
The 2003 World Cup encounter at Centurion remains particularly famous. Pakistan set India 274 to win, and Tendulkar’s attacking 98 helped India complete the chase.
Two decades later, India won again at the 2023 ODI World Cup in Ahmedabad after dismissing Pakistan for 191 and chasing the target comfortably.
T20 World Cup Meetings
T20 World Cups have added another layer.
The rivalry’s T20 World Cup story began with two India-Pakistan matches in the inaugural 2007 competition, including the final.
Pakistan produced one of its most significant modern victories in the 2021 T20 World Cup, winning by ten wickets. It was a landmark result because Pakistan had endured a long sequence of World Cup defeats against India before that breakthrough.
India responded in Melbourne in 2022 in another classic encounter, driven by one of Virat Kohli’s most celebrated T20I innings.
The teams met again in New York during the 2024 T20 World Cup, with India defending a low total to win by six runs.
Then came India’s 61-run victory in Colombo at the 2026 tournament.
The larger lesson is clear: Pakistan’s historical advantage across all internationals and India’s World Cup dominance can both be true at the same time.
India vs Pakistan Asia Cup Record
The Asia Cup has become particularly important because it provides more frequent opportunities for the two teams to meet.
Through the 2025 edition, India held the stronger record in Asia Cup encounters and had also become the tournament’s most successful team.
One statistical complication is that historical databases can count abandoned matches differently. A detailed match-by-match accounting lists 22 India-Pakistan Asia Cup fixtures through 2025, with:
- 13 India wins
- 6 Pakistan wins
- 3 matches without a result
That count includes a 1997 fixture abandoned without play. Other summaries exclude it and therefore show 21 meetings with two no-results.
The Remarkable 2025 Asia Cup
The 2025 tournament gave fans something unprecedented: three India-Pakistan matches in one Asia Cup.
All three were played in Dubai.
India won the group-stage encounter on September 14 by seven wickets after restricting Pakistan to 127/9. Kuldeep Yadav was Player of the Match.
They met again in the Super Four on September 21. Pakistan scored 171/5 before India completed the chase and won by six wickets, with Abhishek Sharma playing a decisive role.
Then came a historic first.
2025 Asia Cup Final: India vs Pakistan
Despite decades of Asia Cup history, India and Pakistan had never faced each other in the tournament final until September 28, 2025.
Pakistan made 146 after being bowled out in 19.1 overs.
India reached 150/5 in 19.4 overs, winning by five wickets. Tilak Varma was named Player of the Match, while Kuldeep Yadav’s four wickets were crucial in restricting Pakistan.
The victory gave India its ninth Asia Cup title. Pakistan has won the tournament twice.
India vs Pakistan Champions Trophy Record
The ICC Champions Trophy has produced some of the rivalry’s biggest swings.
Perhaps the most memorable Pakistan victory of the modern era came in the 2017 Champions Trophy final at The Oval.
Pakistan entered the knockout stages after losing heavily to India earlier in the competition but transformed its campaign. In the final, Fakhar Zaman scored a century as Pakistan posted a huge total before its fast bowlers dismantled India’s chase.
That victory gave Pakistan its first Champions Trophy title.
India later gained another significant tournament victory over Pakistan at the 2025 Champions Trophy in Dubai, where Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 100 guided the side to a six-wicket win.
The contrast captures the rivalry perfectly: historical records matter, but individual tournament matches often develop their own narratives.
Who Has Won More: India or Pakistan?
If the question refers to all men’s international matches combined, Pakistan has won more.
Through February 2026:
Pakistan: 88 wins
India: 81 wins
But that answer alone hides most of the useful information.
Pakistan leads in:
- Tests: 12-9
- ODIs: 73-58
India leads in:
- T20Is: 14-3
- Recent major-tournament meetings
- Asia Cup head-to-head results through 2025
So, which team has the better record depends heavily on the format and era being measured.
Why Does Pakistan Lead Overall While India Dominates Recent Meetings?
This is one of the most useful ways to understand the statistics.
Pakistan’s historical lead was built during decades when the two countries played far more bilateral cricket, particularly ODIs.
The fixture is different now.
The last bilateral series between the senior men’s teams was played in 2012-13, when Pakistan toured India. The T20I series finished 1-1, while Pakistan won the ODI series 2-1.
Since then, meetings have been concentrated in events such as:
- ICC Cricket World Cup
- ICC T20 World Cup
- ICC Champions Trophy
- Asia Cup
That means modern sample sizes are smaller and tournament pressure is much higher.
India has performed especially well under those conditions, producing a recent record that looks very different from the all-time totals accumulated over more than seven decades.
Most Memorable India vs Pakistan Cricket Matches
Picking a single “best” match is impossible, but several encounters changed the history of the rivalry.
1986 Austral-Asia Cup Final
Javed Miandad’s last-ball six off Chetan Sharma in Sharjah became one of Pakistan cricket’s defining moments.
Pakistan needed four from the final delivery, and Miandad cleared the boundary.
For fans who followed cricket in the 1980s, that six remains inseparable from the rivalry.
1996 World Cup Quarter-Final
Bengaluru hosted an emotionally charged knockout game.
India scored 287/8 before restricting Pakistan to 248/9 and advancing to the semi-final.
The match became famous not just for its result but for the tension surrounding the chase.
2003 World Cup
Pakistan’s 273/7 looked competitive at Centurion.
Sachin Tendulkar changed the mood almost immediately with an aggressive 98, helping India chase the target with six wickets remaining.
His uppercut against Shoaib Akhtar remains one of the fixture’s most recognizable images.
2007 T20 World Cup Final
The first T20 World Cup could hardly have produced a more dramatic final.
India scored 157/5. Pakistan’s chase went to the final over before Misbah-ul-Haq attempted a scoop against Joginder Sharma.
Sreesanth took the catch.
India won by five runs.
2011 World Cup Semi-Final
This was more than another World Cup encounter—it was a semi-final in Mohali.
Sachin Tendulkar scored 85 as India posted 260/9. Pakistan was dismissed for 231, giving India a 29-run victory.
India went on to win the World Cup.
2017 Champions Trophy Final
Pakistan’s 180-run victory at The Oval is arguably its defining ICC performance against India.
Fakhar Zaman’s century established the platform, while Mohammad Amir’s new-ball spell devastated India’s top order.
It remains one of Pakistan’s greatest tournament victories.
2022 T20 World Cup at Melbourne
A crowd of more than 90,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground watched a remarkable chase.
India appeared close to defeat before Virat Kohli produced a masterful unbeaten 82.
The match was decided on the final delivery.
2025 Asia Cup Final
The first India-Pakistan Asia Cup final added a new chapter to the rivalry.
Pakistan’s 146 was not enough as Tilak Varma anchored India’s chase with an unbeaten 69, helping India win by five wickets.
2026 T20 World Cup
The latest men’s encounter was considerably less close.
Ishan Kishan’s 77 powered India to 175/7 before Pakistan was dismissed for 114. India’s 61-run victory extended its recent success against Pakistan.
Players Who Defined the India-Pakistan Rivalry
Statistics alone cannot explain why this fixture became so important.
Different generations associate it with different players.
Sachin Tendulkar
Tendulkar produced several memorable innings against Pakistan, particularly in World Cups.
His 98 at Centurion in 2003 remains one of his most celebrated ODI performances.
Virat Kohli
Few modern batters have been as closely associated with high-pressure India-Pakistan chases.
His unbeaten 82 at the MCG in 2022 became an instant classic, while his unbeaten century in the 2025 Champions Trophy demonstrated the same ability in the ODI format.
Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis
Pakistan’s fast-bowling tradition shaped the rivalry throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Wasim’s swing and Waqar’s devastating yorkers gave Pakistan a bowling attack capable of changing a match in a few overs.
Javed Miandad
Miandad became permanently linked to India-Pakistan cricket through his last-ball six in Sharjah in 1986.
Shahid Afridi
Afridi’s aggressive batting and leg-spin made him a major figure in numerous encounters, including memorable Asia Cup contests.
MS Dhoni
Dhoni was central to India’s rise in limited-overs cricket and captained the team to the 2007 T20 World Cup title, including the famous final against Pakistan.
Rohit Sharma and Babar Azam
More recent chapters have featured Rohit Sharma and Babar Azam as leading batters and captains.
They represent an era in which bilateral encounters have largely disappeared and almost every meeting occurs on a major tournament stage.
Why Is India vs Pakistan Cricket Such a Big Rivalry?
The rivalry cannot be explained by cricket statistics alone.
The two countries share a complex history dating from the partition of British India in 1947. Cricket consequently developed a significance that extends beyond sport.
But reducing every match to politics also misses something important.
For generations of supporters, the rivalry is built from sporting memories: Miandad’s six, Tendulkar’s 98, the 2007 final, Amir’s spell at The Oval, Kohli’s Melbourne innings, and more recently India’s victories in Dubai and Colombo.
Rare Meetings Increase the Pressure
Scarcity has made the fixture even bigger.
When regular bilateral series existed, a defeat could be followed by another match days later.
That is rarely possible now.
A loss at a World Cup or Asia Cup can remain the latest result for months—or longer. Every meeting therefore carries unusual emotional weight.
Different Cricketing Traditions
The teams have also historically been associated with different strengths.
Pakistan developed a celebrated tradition of fast bowling, producing players such as Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar.
India has produced generations of elite batters, from Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, while its modern bowling depth has significantly changed the competitive balance.
Those contrasting strengths have repeatedly created fascinating matchups.
Which Team Is Better: India or Pakistan?
There is no single statistic that can settle this question across 74 years of cricket.
If “better” means more victories across the entire historical head-to-head, Pakistan leads 88-81.
If it means T20I head-to-head performance, India leads 14-3.
If the focus is recent meetings and major tournament performance, India has had the stronger run. Pakistan’s historical ODI and Test advantages, however, remain part of the record.
Tournament titles provide another perspective. Both countries have won the ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup and Champions Trophy, although India has accumulated more senior ICC and Asia Cup titles overall.
The fairest answer is therefore era-specific: Pakistan was stronger across significant stretches of the historical rivalry, particularly in ODI cricket, while India has been substantially more successful in the recent era and in T20Is.
How the Rivalry Has Changed
The biggest transformation is not a batting record or bowling statistic. It is how rarely the teams now play.
Older generations saw bilateral Test and ODI series where players had multiple opportunities to adapt to each other.
Modern fans usually see India and Pakistan meet in neutral or multinational tournament settings.
That shift changes everything.
A World Cup group game can carry the emotional intensity of a knockout match. A single mistake is remembered for years. Players have fewer opportunities to build personal records against the opposition, and each meeting attracts extraordinary attention.
The 2025 Asia Cup was unusual precisely because it temporarily reversed that scarcity: India and Pakistan met three times in two weeks, culminating in their first Asia Cup final. India won all three encounters.
Then, on February 15, 2026, India defeated Pakistan by 61 runs at the T20 World Cup in Colombo.
Final Word on india vs pakistan
The india vs pakistan cricket record is best understood as two overlapping stories.
Historically, Pakistan remains ahead in total men’s international victories, with its advantage rooted in Tests and especially ODIs. India, meanwhile, owns a commanding T20I advantage and has been the stronger side across recent high-profile tournament meetings.
The latest chapter came at the 2026 T20 World Cup, where India scored 175/7 and dismissed Pakistan for 114 to win by 61 runs, with Ishan Kishan named Player of the Match.
Yet numbers explain only part of why this fixture matters. From Javed Miandad’s Sharjah six and Sachin Tendulkar’s Centurion innings to the 2007 T20 World Cup final, Pakistan’s 2017 Champions Trophy triumph, Virat Kohli’s Melbourne classic and the first Asia Cup final between the teams in 2025, each generation has acquired its own defining moment.
That combination of history, scarcity, contrasting eras and tournament pressure is why India versus Pakistan remains one of cricket’s most closely followed rivalries.