India defeated Pakistan by 61 runs in the T20 World Cup 2026 clash at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. It was the Men in Blue’s biggest-ever win over the arch-rivals in the shortest format of the game. With that, they have progressed to the Super 8 of the competition, while Pakistan moved to number three on the points table, behind the USA.
Notably, Ishan Kishan dominated the proceedings for India, playing a commanding knock of 77 runs off 40 balls. On a surface when all the other batters were struggling to keep up with the strike rate, the southpaw hammered the Pakistan spinners. He set the momentum as the middle order only focused on rotating strike. Towards the fag end, Shivam Dube and Rinku Singh handed some quick cameos to help the team post 175 runs on the board, which is the highest-ever in IND vs PAK clash in T20 World Cup history.
Pakistan were expected to show some grit with the bat but they flopped yet again. The Salman Agha-led side lost four wickets in the powerplay and there was no coming back. They were eventually bundled for just 114 runs as India registered a comfortable win. For the defending champions, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel and Varun Chakravarthy picked up two wickets each.
Suryakumar analyses India’s win
Meanwhile, after the game, captain Suryakumar Yadav dedicated the win to the people of India. Analysing the win, the 35-year-old noted that they wanted to play an aggressive brand of cricket and were successful in doing so. He also lauded Kishan for his blistering knock.
“I think this is for India. We played the same brand of cricket what we wanted to play. Batting first was better option on this wicket. Ishan thought something out of the box. After 0/1, someone had to take responsibility and the way he took it was amazing. It was great to see everyone contributing with the ball. We'll go back, have a good time together as a team and then think about the other games when we take the flight to Ahmedabad.” Suryakumar said after the match.
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