Gill vs Afridi, Haris vs Bumrah and other contests within India-Pakistan contest

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 Indian cricket's all-format superstar, is touted to be a captain-in-waiting across the white-ball formats, having slipped almost effortlessly into the role of Test captain.

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 a fiery stare-down or sharp words stretching back to their Under-19 World Cup days, will cross paths again on Sunday, for the first time in T20Is.

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. Even if he wanted to forget, no one would let him erase that ball to Babar Azam at the 2019 World Cup, one that left 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.

He 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 has all the makings of a fascinating subplot.

Mohammad Haris, like Sam Konstas, is not better at his craft than Jasprit Bumrah. Come to think of it, though, Haris is very much a cricketer in the mould of Konstas. It's been nine months since 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.

On Sunday, Haris, too, will face Bumrah for the first time. Haris' penchant for extreme high-risk shotmaking is of a very similar profile. In just his second T20I, he 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.

Having scored only 54 runs in 11 innings before Friday's 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 anyway. 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, expect it not to come off.

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.

However, his strike rate drops down to 150 against spin, as opposed to 173.48 against pace. Though he takes on each kind of bowling - he has his 17 T20I sixes against each - the quality of spin appears to make 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 a batting innings through those middle overs.

We're likely to see spin come on as soon as Nawaz comes to the crease, and whether he can prove himself against that colossal challenge may be a hinge point for this contest.