India vs Pakistan Test Head-to-Head: Record & Results

This is the only one of India's major Test rivalries that has a final figure rather than a running one. The last Test between the two countries was played at Bengaluru in December 2007, it was drawn, and nothing has been added since. The ledger reads 59 matches, Pakistan 12 wins, India 9, and 38 draws.

Thirty-eight draws from fifty-nine Tests is 64% of the fixture. Seventeen of those draws came from the twenty-two Tests played in the 1980s, when both sides toured each other repeatedly on surfaces that gave bowlers almost nothing and neither board had much appetite for a result that would carry political weight at home.

The other thing the closed ledger shows is that India's best years in the fixture came at the very end. Of their nine wins, four came in the 2000s, including the series in Pakistan in 2003-04 that they won 2-1 — their only away series win against Pakistan in fifty-five years of trying. Then the fixture stopped.

A ledger that has not moved since December 2007

All men's Tests between the two sides, from Delhi in October 1952 to Bengaluru in December 2007.

Where played	Tests	India won	Pakistan won	Drawn	Share drawn
In India	33	7	5	21	63.6%
In Pakistan	26	2	7	17	65.4%
All Tests	59	9	12	38	64.4%

India won the first Test the two countries played, at Delhi in October 1952, and lost the second at Lucknow a week later, where they were bowled out for 106 and Fazal Mahmood took the match apart. That set the tone for a fixture in which results were rare and, when they came, usually decisive.

The away column is the harsher one. Two wins from twenty-six Tests in Pakistan, and both of them in the same series, at Multan and Rawalpindi in the spring of 2004. At home India are 7-5, and the one series Pakistan won in India was settled at Bengaluru in March 1987, which is why that match is still argued about. The political and cultural context of all of this is on the India-Pakistan rivalry page; this page deals only with what the scorecards contain.

Decade by decade

Decade	Tests	India won	Pakistan won	Drawn
1950s	10	2	1	7
1960s	5	0	0	5
1970s	7	1	2	4
1980s	22	1	4	17
1990s	3	1	2	0
2000s	12	4	3	5

Two rows are worth stopping on. The five Tests of the 1960s were all drawn — that was the 1960-61 series in India, after which the two countries did not play a Test for more than seventeen years, until India toured Pakistan in October 1978.

The 1980s row is the fixture in miniature. Twenty-two Tests, seventeen draws, five results. India won one Test in the entire decade against Pakistan. And then the 1990s produced three Tests and three results, because the sides met only twice in that decade and both series were played on pitches that behaved. The broader arc of how Indian Test cricket moved from draw-first to result-first is covered in India's Test cricket history.

Series results in the 2000s

Series	Host	Tests	Result
2003-04	Pakistan	3	India won 2-1
2004-05	India	3	Drawn 1-1
2005-06	Pakistan	3	Pakistan won 1-0
2007-08	India	3	India won 1-0

Four series in five years, and then nothing. The 2003-04 tour is the one that mattered. India won at Multan by an innings and 52 runs, lost at Lahore by nine wickets, and won the decider at Rawalpindi by an innings and 131 runs. It remains the only Test series India have won in Pakistan.

The 2005-06 return was the opposite kind of cricket: two enormous draws at Lahore and Faisalabad, in which Pakistan made 679 for 7 and 588 and India made 603, and then a Pakistan win at Karachi by 341 runs. The 2007-08 series in India was decided by the first Test at Delhi, which India won by six wickets, and the last two were drawn — the second of them, at Bengaluru in December 2007, closing the fixture.

The biggest innings totals

Total	Team	Result	Ground	Date
699/5	Pakistan	draw	Lahore	1 Dec 1989
679/7d	Pakistan	draw	Lahore	13 Jan 2006
675/5d	India	won	Multan	28 Mar 2004
674/6	Pakistan	draw	Faisalabad	24 Oct 1984
652	Pakistan	won	Faisalabad	3 Jan 1983
626	India	draw	Bengaluru	8 Dec 2007
616/5d	India	draw	Eden Gardens	30 Nov 2007
603	India	draw	Faisalabad	21 Jan 2006
600	India	won	Rawalpindi	13 Apr 2004
599/7d	Pakistan	won	Karachi	29 Jan 2006

Ten scores of 599 or more in 59 Tests, and seven of the ten produced no result at all. Pakistan's 699 for 5 at Lahore in December 1989 is the highest total in the fixture and came in a drawn match on a drawn tour: all four Tests of that series finished level.

India's 675 for 5 declared at Multan in March 2004 is the one that converted, and it contains the highest individual innings anyone made in the fixture, Virender Sehwag's 309, the first Test triple century by an Indian. Sehwag's overall record against Pakistan — 1,276 runs from fourteen innings at 91.14 — is the highest average of any batter with a thousand runs in the fixture. India's record totals against all opposition are on the highest Test team totals page, and the opening partnerships that made several of them possible are discussed under India's great opening batters.

Bengaluru 1987, and the low scores

Lowest completed innings in the fixture, restricted to innings in which the side was bowled out.

Total	Team	Overs	Result	Ground	Date
106	India	55.1	lost	Lucknow	23 Oct 1952
116	Pakistan	49.2	won	Bengaluru	13 Mar 1987
126	India	41.5	draw	Delhi	4 Dec 1979
145	India	63.3	draw	Karachi	26 Feb 1955
145	India	64.0	lost	Bengaluru	13 Mar 1987
148	India	82.5	draw	Dhaka	1 Jan 1955
150	Pakistan	104.3	lost	Delhi	16 Oct 1952
156	India	72.5	draw	Lahore	17 Oct 1984

Two rows in that table come from the same match. At Bengaluru in March 1987 Pakistan were bowled out for 116 and India for 145, and Pakistan won by sixteen runs to take the series — the only series Pakistan have won in India. It is the lowest-scoring Test either side played against the other and, given the run-glut of the surrounding decade, an oddity that has never been repeated.

The Delhi entry from October 1952 is Pakistan taking 104.3 overs to make 150, which is a reminder of what a first innings looked like in the fixture's first season. India's 106 at Lucknow the following week is the lowest total either side made in the whole fixture. The equivalent list against all opposition sits on the lowest Test team totals page.

The batting averages that make this fixture strange

India's leading run scorers against Pakistan in Tests.

Batter	Span	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave	100s
Sunil Gavaskar	1978-1987	24	41	2,089	166	56.45	5
Dilip Vengsarkar	1978-1987	22	35	1,284	146*	44.27	2
Virender Sehwag	2004-2006	9	14	1,276	309	91.14	4
Rahul Dravid	1999-2007	15	26	1,236	270	53.73	5
Mohinder Amarnath	1978-1987	18	28	1,080	120	45.00	4
Sachin Tendulkar	1989-2007	18	27	1,057	194*	42.28	2
Kapil Dev	1978-1989	29	41	1,054	84	27.02	0
Polly Umrigar	1952-1961	15	19	911	117	53.58	5

Pakistan's leading run scorers against India.

Batter	Span	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave	100s
Javed Miandad	1978-1989	28	39	2,228	280*	67.51	5
Zaheer Abbas	1978-1984	19	25	1,740	235*	87.00	6
Mudassar Nazar	1978-1984	18	25	1,431	231	62.21	6
Younis Khan	2005-2007	9	17	1,321	267	88.06	5
Mohammad Yousuf	1999-2007	15	27	1,247	173	49.88	4
Imran Khan	1978-1989	23	29	1,091	135*	51.95	3
Hanif Mohammad	1952-1961	15	26	970	160	40.41	2
Saleem Malik	1982-1999	22	29	846	107	35.25	3

Five of the sixteen names above average over sixty in the fixture and three of those over eighty-five. Zaheer Abbas made 1,740 runs at 87.00 in nineteen Tests, Younis Khan 1,321 at 88.06 in nine, and Sehwag 1,276 at 91.14 in nine. Those are not normal Test figures and they are not explained by weak bowling: Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Kapil Dev and Anil Kumble all played in this fixture. They are explained by pitches, and by the fact that both sides usually batted first with a draw as an acceptable outcome.

Javed Miandad's 2,228 runs is the largest aggregate in the fixture and Gavaskar's 2,089 the second; nobody else reached 1,800. Kapil Dev appears on the India list with 1,054 runs at 27.02 from 29 Tests, more matches than any other batter on either side, which is what happens when an allrounder is the one constant across a decade of drawn cricket. Batting records only tell half of it, and the captaincy side of the fixture is covered under India's Test captains.

Kapil Dev's 99 and Imran Khan's 94

India's leading wicket takers against Pakistan in Tests.

Bowler	Span	Mat	Wkts	Best	Ave	5wi
Kapil Dev	1978-1989	29	99	8/85	30.12	7
Anil Kumble	1999-2007	15	81	10/74	31.97	5
Vinoo Mankad	1952-1955	9	37	8/52	24.67	4
Subhash Gupte	1952-1961	10	34	5/18	25.05	3
Dilip Doshi	1979-1983	11	27	5/90	38.66	1
Irfan Pathan	2004-2007	10	27	5/61	49.92	1
Lakshmipathy Balaji	2004-2005	6	26	5/76	31.57	1
Maninder Singh	1982-1989	13	26	7/27	49.11	2

Pakistan's leading wicket takers against India.

Bowler	Span	Mat	Wkts	Best	Ave	5wi
Imran Khan	1978-1989	23	94	8/60	24.04	6
Wasim Akram	1987-1999	12	45	5/96	28.86	2
Fazal Mahmood	1952-1961	14	44	7/42	24.54	4
Danish Kaneria	2004-2007	11	43	6/150	41.48	2
Mahmood Hussain	1952-1961	14	39	6/67	33.15	2
Sarfraz Nawaz	1978-1983	9	36	5/70	29.38	1
Iqbal Qasim	1978-1987	15	34	6/40	39.23	2
Shoaib Akhtar	1999-2007	10	28	4/47	34.50	0

Kapil Dev finished on 99 wickets against Pakistan, one short of the hundred, from 29 Tests at 30.12 with seven five-wicket hauls. Imran Khan's 94 came from 23 Tests at 24.04, which is the better return on every measure except the raw count. Between them they took 193 of the wickets in this fixture, and they were on opposite sides of it for eleven years.

Anil Kumble's entry carries the single most famous piece of bowling in the fixture: 10 for 74 at Delhi in February 1999, all ten wickets in an innings, only the second time it had been done in Test cricket. Two of the best averages in either list belong to the 1950s — Vinoo Mankad's 24.67 and Fazal Mahmood's 24.54 — and neither Danish Kaneria at 41.48 nor Shoaib Akhtar at 34.50 could reproduce that in the run-heavy 2000s. The spin tradition Kumble inherited is set out in India's spin bowling tradition.

The last ten Tests

Most recent first.

Start date	Ground	Result	Margin
8 Dec 2007	Bengaluru	drawn	—
30 Nov 2007	Eden Gardens	drawn	—
22 Nov 2007	Delhi	India won	6 wickets
29 Jan 2006	Karachi	Pakistan won	341 runs
21 Jan 2006	Faisalabad	drawn	—
13 Jan 2006	Lahore	drawn	—
24 Mar 2005	Bengaluru	Pakistan won	168 runs
16 Mar 2005	Eden Gardens	India won	195 runs
8 Mar 2005	Mohali	drawn	—
13 Apr 2004	Rawalpindi	India won	inns & 131 runs

Four India, two Pakistan, four drawn. That is a better return for India than the fixture's overall shape, and it is where the record was left. The Bengaluru Test that begins the list is now more than eighteen years old, which makes the current gap longer than the seventeen-and-a-half-year break that followed the 1960-61 series.

What the closed record shows

• Nearly two thirds of the fixture was drawn. Thirty-eight of 59 Tests, and only 21 results across fifty-five years of scheduling.
• Pakistan's lead is smaller than the win column suggests. Twelve to nine over 59 Tests is a three-match margin, and India took four of the last ten.
• India's away record is the weak point and it was fixed once. Two wins from 26 Tests in Pakistan, both in March and April 2004.
• The batting figures are unlike anything in India's other rivalries. Three batters averaged above 85 in the fixture and five above 60. No fixture India play now produces numbers of that kind.
• The two lowest all-out totals of either side came in the same Test. Pakistan's 116 and India's 145 at Bengaluru in March 1987, in a match Pakistan won by sixteen runs to take their only series in India.
• Kapil Dev's 99 wickets is the largest tally in a fixture that closed before he could add to it, and Imran Khan's 94 at 24.04 is the best sustained bowling return either country produced in it.

The two sides still meet in white-ball cricket at ICC and Asian Cricket Council events, and those records are live rather than frozen: see the India versus Pakistan ODI head-to-head, the India versus Pakistan T20I head-to-head and the Asia Cup history. The rest of the Indian record is indexed from cricket in India.

Sources and method

All figures were read from ESPNcricinfo's Statsguru, filtered to men's Test matches between India and Pakistan. Because the fixture has produced no cricket since 8 December 2007, the totals on this page are complete rather than provisional — the only page in this set for which that is true. They would change only if the two boards resumed bilateral Test cricket.

The home and away rows use Statsguru's venue classification and account for all 59 Tests, with no neutral-venue matches. Their columns sum to the overall line, which is the arithmetic check applied to that table and to the decade table, the latter reproduced from Statsguru's own grouping. Note that the Dhaka Test of January 1955 counts as a Pakistan home match, because Dhaka was then in East Pakistan.

The series table covers the four series played in the 2000s and was built from the match-by-match result list rather than a published summary. Earlier series are described in the prose using the decade totals rather than tabulated, because several of the tours between 1978 and 1990 ran across two calendar years and one was curtailed, which makes a series table for that period more misleading than useful.

The lowest-totals table includes only innings in which a side was bowled out; declared innings and fourth-innings targets reached with wickets in hand are excluded even where the score was smaller. Batting and bowling tables are ranked by aggregate runs and wickets. Where averages are compared in the prose the floor used is a thousand runs or twenty wickets in the fixture, stated at the point of comparison, because a rate from three or four Tests in a fixture this old is not comparable to one from twenty. Nothing here was computed from ball-by-ball data.