Thousands of fans from both countries have crisscrossed the globe to watch their team in action and trust rival captains Rohit Sharma and Babar Azam to tell you this is another 'match' for them, but all the 22 players and reserves know that this is 'The Match'.
IMAGES from the ICC World Cup match played between Afghanistan and Pakistan in Chennai on Monday.
Suryakumar reached a career-best-equalling second position in the ICC men's T20I Player rankings
Pressure is on India, Pakistan have nothing to lose: Shoaib Akhtar on India-Pakistan World Cup clash
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji present Rediff.com's Most Valuable Player Index after 37 World Cup 2023 games.
Who do you think should be part of India's playing for the World Cup match against Pakistan?
Pace legend Waqar Younis is backing Pakistan to win the T20 World Cup to be held in Australia later this year, saying the pitches Down Under could favour their potent bowling attack.
Pakistan mentor Matthew Hayden is backing struggling captain Babar Azam to produce something special in the knockout stages of the Twenty20 World Cup, starting in Wednesday's semi-final against New Zealand.
IMAGES from the T20 World Cup Final played between Pakistan and England in Melbourne on Sunday.
'As I walked in to bat, I cursed Dinesh Karthik for a second.'
Virat Kohli was magnificent at the death, finishing 82 not out after digging India out of trouble
Who do you think should be part of India's playing for their T20 World Cup opening match against Pakistan on Sunday?
IMAGES from the Asia Cup Super 4s match played between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Sharjah on Wednesday.
Abrar Ahmed made a stunning Test debut claiming seven for 114 to bowl out England for 281
Both Hayden and Philander asked the Pakistani fans to back the current team.
Hayden believes that the team's performance would improve by the time they travel to India for the 50-over World Cup.
Stokes brought his first half-century in T20I cricket with a four in 47 balls while levelling the scores. He (unbeaten at 52* off 49 balls) then brought up the winning runs, with Liam Livingstone at 1* and England finished the innings at 138/5 in 19 overs.
Srinivas Bhogle and Purnendu Maji list the Most Valuable Players in T20 World Cup 2022.
New Zealand are better organised and clinical in terms of execution and hence could start as the favourites in the first semi-final against Pakistan on Wednesday.
Images from the T20 World Cup Super 12 match between Pakistan and Netherlands, in Perth, on Sunday
Great players have the knack of conquering the odds, and on Sunday Kohli crossed a major hurdle with the fighting spirit of a champion.
The infected players will go into self-isolation.
Hasaranga claimed three wickets in one over and Pramod Madushan claimed a career-best 4-34 to bowl out Pakistan for 147 in exactly 20 overs.
With bilateral cricket remaining suspended between the bitter neighbours, India and Pakistan play each other only in multi-team tournaments with their rivalry now a rare but enticing occasion for fans worldwide.
The two sixes from Kohli has already become part of cricketing forklore and Ponting, too, looked back fondly at those outrageous strokes
"It was a treat to watch you play, the six off the back foot in the 19th over against (Haris) Rauf over long-on was spectacular. Keep it going," Tendulkar tweeted.
Four other players -- Kashif Bhatti, Haris Rauf, Haider Ali and Imran Khan -- tested positive for the second time earlier this week.
Half-centuries from Mohammed Rizwan and Babar Azam helped Pakistan outclass Namibia by 45 runs to storm into the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
The winning runs were eventually scored by Mohammad Nawaz (25 from 21) as he hooked Williams to the mid-wicket boundary for six off the penultimate ball of the match to complete a memorable series win.
Pakistan's weakened pace attack in the absence of injured Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah, didn't offer a challenge to Conway and Latham with the new ball as both batters took New Zealand to 41-0 by tea before adding 124 more runs in the final session.
But just like everyone wants a slice of '92 from Babar's team, the core of this current English team also has a date with history
The Pakistan cricket squad was allowed to leave their managed isolation facility in Christchurch after getting clearance from New Zealand's Health Ministry on Tuesday.
IMAGES from the Asia Cup Super 4s match played between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Dubai on Friday.
Having found his mojo back after a prolonged lean patch, Kohli was at his attacking best but slowing down cost him and India 20-25 runs.
'The best part about what I loved about him (doing that) is we struggled, bro. Why it was so special was we struggled together. This would've been not this special if we had just cruised through.'
After those high-profile matches, stakes will be relatively lower when they meet Afghanistan but Saqlain said there were no rooms for complacency.
India captain Virat Kohli dropped one place to fifth despite his half-century against Pakistan for a lost cause in the ongoing T20 World Cup while team-mate KL Rahul slipped two slots to eighth in the ICC men's T20I Player rankings.
Images from the T20 World Cup Super 12s match between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Dubai, on Friday.
Former spinner Saqlain Mushtaq was named interim head coach following the resignation of Misbah ul-Haq.
IMAGES from the T20 World Cup match played between Pakistan and Bangladesh in Adelaide on Sunday.
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