India will take on Pakistan in the opening game of their 2021 ICC T20 World Cup campaign in Dubai on Sunday. The meeting between the two bitter rivals will be their sixth clash in the showpiece T20 event. The two sides had faced off in an opening round clash of the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007, which India won in a bowl-out. Later in the tournament, India would go on to beat Pakistan by five runs in the final to claim the title.

India and Pakistan faced off again in the 2012, 2014 and 2016 editions, with the Indian team winning on each occasion.

As India seek to maintain their perfect record against Pakistan in World Cup clashes – India have also beaten Pakistan in all seven of their ODI World Cup meetings – here is a look at some of the best individual performances by Indian players against their arch-rivals in past T20 World Cup games.

Gautam Gambhir (2007)

After being dismissed for a duck in the group stage match against Pakistan, Gautam Gambhir played an innings to remember in the final as his 75-run knock off 54 balls helped India post 157/5 in 20 overs despite underwhelming performances from other batters. India went on to win by five runs to secure the title in Johannesburg.

Irfan Pathan (2007)

While Gambhir starred with the bat in the 2007 final, Irfan Pathan played an equally crucial role with the ball later in the match. Pathan finished with impressive figures of 3/16 from his four overs and picked the crucial wickets of Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi and Yasir Arafat.

Yuvraj Singh (2012)

Virat Kohli scored an unbeaten 78 as India comfortably beat Pakistan by eight wickets in a Super 8 match in the 2012 T20 World Cup. However, it was Yuvraj Singh who helped set up the win with an all-round performance. Yuvraj dealt Pakistan two devastating blows in the middle overs as he dismissed Nasir Jamshed and Kamran Akmal. Pakistan never recovered and were bowled out for 128. Yuvraj later chipped in with an unbeaten 19 with the bat to complete the win.

Amit Mishra (2014)

India notched another convincing win over Pakistan in 2014 when they beat their arch-rivals by seven wickets. Amit Mishra was the unsung hero of the game, removing Ahmed Shehzad and Shoaib Malik in crucial phases to help restrict Pakistan to 130/7 in 20 overs. He finished with figures of 2/22 from his four overs.

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Virat Kohli (2016)

Virat Kohli had a tournament to remember in 2016 when he played a handful of important knocks for India. One of those was an unbeaten 55 against Pakistan as he helped India recover from three early blows to chase down the target of 119 runs with six wickets and 13 balls to spare in a low-scoring game.