The cricket world will shift its collective gaze towards Dubai when India play Pakistan in a group fixture at the Asia Cup on Sunday. Here are four compelling contests to look out for.
The superstars face off
When Shaheen Shah Afridi dismissed Shubman Gill with 100,000 people watching in Ahmedabad at the 2023 World Cup, he felt "you could've heard a fly buzzing, such was the silence."
Gill, now India's all-format superstar, is touted to be a captain-in-waiting across formats, having slipped almost effortlessly into the role in Test cricket.
After two difficult years battling back injuries, form slumps, and seeing T20I captaincy come and go, Afridi seems to have rediscovered the menace that once made him Pakistan's most feared quick: the late in-swing, the skiddy pace, the ability to rip out top orders, like he famously did when Pakistan beat India at the 2021 T20 World Cup on these shores.
The two, no strangers to stare downs or sharp words stretching back to their Under-19 World Cup days, will cross paths again on Sunday, for the first time in T20Is.
The battle of the wristspinners
In any other team, Kuldeep Yadav would be an all-format player. In India, though, he has had to make peace with being a white-ball specialist. His four-wicket haul against UAE, after spending the entire summer on the sidelines in England, may have been a neat little prelude.
Kuldeep knows this stage well. No one can forget that ball to Babar Azam at the 2019 World Cup, bowling him through the gate and leaving even the late Shane Warne guffawing in admiration.
Alongside him is Varun Chakravarthy, whose career arc could fill a Tamil blockbuster. The ex-architect and film hopeful was dropped soon after India's early exit at the 2021 T20 World Cup. He wondered if he would ever wear India colours again. But since the last T20 World Cup, which he didn't even make, no bowler has taken more T20I wickets than Varun's 32.
Pakistan have their own mystery spinners. Sufiyan Muqeem, the left-arm wristspinner, came through the 'A' system, has been one of their brightest prospects and is the first Pakistani, at No. 10, in the above list. He is quicker through the air than Kuldeep, more in the mould of Noor Ahmad.
Muqeem was instrumental in Pakistan's win over India at the 2023 Emerging Asia Cup and now has a chance to do it on the big stage. He isn't a regular yet, but one dazzling ball or spell, like Abrar Ahmed's ripper that breached Gill's defence at the Champions Trophy earlier this year, could change that.
Varun-and-Kuldeep versus Muqeem-and-Abrar is a fascinating subplot.
Bumrah against Haris - facts or feelings?
Mohammad Haris, like Sam Konstas, is not better at his craft than Jasprit Bumrah is at his. But the Australian rode his luck in an astonishing Test innings on debut against Bumrah, reverse-scooping him twice for a six and smashing 18 in the most expensive over of the fast bowler's Test career and Haris could do something similar here in the T20 format.
Like Konstas, Haris too will be facing Bumrah for the first time and, like Konstas, he too has a penchant for high-risk shot-making. In just his second T20I, Haris reinvigorated Pakistan's flagging T20I World Cup campaign in 2022. He took on South Africa's elite pace bowlers, smashing Kagiso Rabada for 17 in an 11-ball knock that produced 28.
Scoring only 54 runs in 11 innings before Friday's Asia Cup game against Oman demonstrates how that approach fails more often than not. However, Haris' conventional technique is nowhere near good enough to take on a bowler of Bumrah's quality. So expect him to try to lash, thrash, paddle and scoop his way to a cameo, because that is all Pakistan need from him, just like they did at the SCG three years ago. But if facts and logic have their way, it might not come off.
Hasan Nawaz vs India's spin elite
Hasan Nawaz has emerged as Pakistan's bludgeon outside of the powerplay. Having tinkered around with his batting position, Pakistan have begun using him when the field spreads out, where his 2025 T20 strike of 174.09 is below only Dewald Brevis and Tim David's.
Notably though, Hasan's strike rate drops down to 150 against spin, as opposed to 173.48 against pace. He takes on each kind of bowling - he has his 17 T20I sixes against each - so the quality of spin appears to be making a difference.
Against Afghanistan in the recent tri-series, he scored 33 in as many balls across three innings, with Noor and Rashid Khan taking turns to dismiss him. India's spin trio of Axar Patel, Varun and Kuldeep is very much in the same elite mould, and adept at asphyxiating an innings through those middle overs.
We're likely to see spin come on as soon as Hasan comes to the crease, and whether he can prove himself against that colossal challenge may be a hinge point for this contest.