From Virat Kohli to Tilak Varma, meet 4 players who earned superstar status in India-Pakistan matches

The latest to make this list is a mainstay T20 batter from India, Tilak Varma, who rose to the limelight with his match-winning, unbeaten 69 off 53 balls while chasing in the 2025 Asia Cup final, helping India hunt the target (147) with two balls and five wickets remaining. Varma's performance saw him seal the number four spot in India's daunting T20I XI.

Having made his T20I debut in 2018, Shaheen emerged as a superstar following his massive success against India in the 2021 T20 World Cup game (in Dubai), wherein he returned with three wickets in the first innings, including removing the top three in Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli. Pakistan beat India by 10 wickets in that match, and that remains Pakistan’s only win over India in T20 WCs to date.

The most heartbreaking loss for India against Pakistan came during the 2017 Champions Trophy final, when Pakistan crushed them by 180 runs. Although Pakistan had several match winners on that day, one name that topped the list and became an overnight sensation was opener Fakhar Zaman, who scored a match-winning 114.

Having already made headlines for his record run chase against Sri Lanka in Hobart earlier, India’s Virat Kohli needed that one inning that separated him from the rest, and it came against Pakistan in the 2012 Asia Cup match, which also happened to be Sachin Tendulkar’s final ODI.

Chasing 330, Kohli slammed his One-Day career best 183 off 148 balls, helping India complete the chase with six wickets and 13 balls remaining.

An established superstar by this time, Kohli’s unbeaten 82 against Pakistan during the group game at the MCG in the 2022 edition was perhaps his greatest cricketing knock, which further cemented his position as cricket’s greatest chaser. For how he achieved that improbable-looking target at the end, Kohli gave cricket fans, let alone just Indians, a memory to cherish forever.