India's desert woes: Revisiting shadowy Sharjah

#3 Ominous statistics

December 5, 1986: Champions Trophy: Pakistan beat India by 3 wickets in a low-scoring encounter.

April 10, 1987: Sharjah Cup: Pakistan beat India by 8 wickets with half-centuries from Rameez Raja, Saleem Malik, and Javed Miandad.

October 19, 1988: Sharjah Champions Trophy: Pakistan beat India by 34 runs with a century from Saleem Malik.

October 15, 1989: Champions Trophy. Pakistan beat India by 6 wickets. Sidhu scored a century for India and Saleem Malik scored an unbeaten 68 to power Pakistan home yet again.

April 27, 1990: Austral-Asia Cup: Pakistan beat India by 26 runs.Waqar Younis picked up four wickets for Pakistan and Saleem Yousuf scored 62.

October 18, 1991: Wills Trophy: India beat Pakistan in a group match of the Wills Trophy by 60 runs thanks to a 72 from Sanjay Manjrekar.

Was the jinx finally broken? Not really, and not for long.

October 25, 1991: Wills Trophy (Final) : Pakistan beat India by 72 runs.

Zahid Fazal scored 98 and Saleem Malik scored 87. Pakistan pacer Aaquib Javed claimed a hat-trick taking advantage of the desert wind. He first claimed the wicket of Ravi Shastri who was on 15, followed by Azharuddin and Tendulkar both of whom returned to the pavilion without scoring. All three batsmen were adjudged out leg-before much to the anger of Indian fans.

After a three-year hiatus, India returned to Sharjah in 1994. The trend did not change much.

April 15, 1994: Pepsi Austral-Asia Cup. Pakistan beat India by 6 wickets in this group encounter. Tendulkar scored 73 for India while Saeed Anwar scored 71 for Pakistan.

April 22, 1994: Pepsi Austral-Asia Cup (Final): Pakistan beat India by 39 runs with a half-century from Aamir Sohail.

April 7, 1995: Singer Asia Cup: Pakistan beat India by 97 runs. Thankfully, however, India won the Cup beating Sri Lanka in the finals.

April 12, 1996: Pepsi Sharjah Cup: Pakistan beat India by 38 runs with a century from Aamir Sohail.

December 14, 1997: Akai-Singer Champions Trophy: Pakistan beat India by 4 wickets with a century from Saeed Anwar.

April 8, 1999: Coca-Cola Cup: Pakistan beat India by 116 runs with a century from Inzamam-Ul-Haq.

March 23, 2000: Coca-Cola Cup: India beat Pakistan by 5 wickets.

March 26: 2000: Coca-Cola Cup: Pakistan beat India by 98 runs. Inzamam-Ul-Haq scoring a century yet again.

India never played in Sharjah again.

Pakistan beat India 13 times in Sharjah out of a total of 15 encounters between the two since the fateful final in April 1986. India did win twice (in the Wills Trophy in 1991 and the Coca-Cola Cup in 2000) but were subsequently beaten both times by Pakistan in the same two tournaments.

To get a clearer picture of Pakistan's domination, let us also take a look at the statistics outside of Sharjah.