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It is time for India-Pakistan sports encounters
India and Pakistan will be face to face with each other in London on June 23 and June 26 in their first ever FIH Pro League clashes.
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Prabhjot Paul Singh - Mon, 15, Jun 2026
- 00:07 EDT
- 21
Indian Women's Cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur with the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup trophy during her visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan after their title win, in New Delhi on November 6, 2025. / Courtesy: IANS/Prem Nath Pandey
Led by Harmanpreet Kaur, Indian women made a winning start in the ensuing sporting encounters with Pakistan. Playing against each other in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup at Edgbaston, Indian women recorded a convincing 64-run win over its neighbour and arch-rival Pakistan to make a winning start in defence of its title it won back home last year.
While the entire world is in the grip of FIFA World Cup fever, hardcore sports enthusiasts from two neighbouring nations keenly look forward to the contests of their national teams. Of three Indo-Pak encounters scheduled for this month, India is already up 1-0 as the remaining two, both in hockey – the FIH Pro League – are due in London on June 23 and 26.
Indian men’s hockey team is expected to take the winning streak forward when they take on their fiercest neighbours in the FIH Pro League in London in the coming week. It may be pertinent to mention that Pakistan decided to participate in the FIH Pro League after the International Hockey Federation’s approval last year.
While Indian men lost to the Netherlands 2-3 in their first encounter of the second phase, Pakistan went down fighting 1-5 to Spain. Now, both the teams would be out looking for a win to make the June encounter exciting and absorbing as ever.
Also read: Hockey: India wins Men's Asia U-18 Cup
India and Pakistan will be face to face with each other in London on June 23 and June 26 in their first ever FIH Pro League clashes. As of today, both India and Pakistan are winless. India has played 9 games and Pakistan 10.
India’s consolation is that it has drawn three of its nine games and won one of these drawn games in penalty shootout to aggregate four points while Pakistan is yet to log in its first point. India is placed eighth while Pakistan is at the bottom ninth position so far.
Interestingly, kt is the time when the FIFA World Cup for Men and the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup are in progress. While the FIFA World Cup is being staged jointly by the USA, Mexico and Canada, England is organising the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
At the same time, the FIH is holding the second phase of its infamous FIH Pro League, both for men and women, in England and the Netherlands while the hockey world awaits the holding of the FIH Men’s and Women’s World Cup in the Netherlands and Belgium in August this year.
Meanwhile, in the women’s T20 World Cup, India beat rivals Pakistan by 64 runs to start its title bid in style. The win was master minded by Deepti Sharma, whose five-wicket haul and Smriti Mandhana’s excellent 68 anchored an impressive all-round team performance to help the defending champions record a resounding win.
A crowd of 18,814 packed into Edgbaston, the highest ever for an ICC Women's T20 World Cup Group Stage match. And they were not disappointed, as India overpowered their opponents to begin Group A in style.
Deepti Sharma took the second five-wicket haul of her T20I career as India convincingly beat Pakistan to begin their ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 campaign on a high.
India (ICC T20I Ranking: 3) posted 170 for six from their 20 overs, thanks to the excellent hitting of opening batter Smriti Mandhana, before Sharma helped to bowl Pakistan (ICC T20I Ranking: 8) out for 106.
India next face the Netherlands at Headingley on June 17, while Pakistan stay at Edgbaston to play South Africa that same evening in the second of five group games.
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