T20 World Cup 2026: Hardik Pandya and his 'no look' aura symbolises India's dominance over Pakistan

If there is one moment that summed up India's dominance over Pakistan in recent years, it was when Hardik Pandya dismissed Sahibzada Farhan for a duck in the first over of the run chase on Sunday (February 15). Hardik had begun the over with three successive dots and all three deliveries were accurate enough from the all-rounder.

Two of those deliveries also had some swing on offer for Hardik. With an above-par target to chase on a used pitch, three dots were too many for Farhan who likes to be aggressive more often than not. So, he had decided that would take on the next ball no matter what. To his pleasant surprise, it was a short of a length ball but to his shock, the line wasn't there for the pull shot.

Farhan, though, is an instinctive puller and gets out to this shot quite a lot against quality fast bowlers. The result was the same here as the top edge flew only as far as Rinku Singh at mid-on. What stood out in this dismissal came after Farhan had played the shot. Hardik, ice-cool in his behaviour didn't even turn back to see if the catch was taken or not. He knew it would be taken.

Hardik just stared at Farhan and kept walking towards Ishan Kishan with a sense of nonchalance. This 'no look' swagger defines Hardik's personality. Remember, in a T20I against Bangladesh not too long ago, he had played a 'no look' ramp against Taskin Ahmed to pick up a maximum. He never looked behind at all in that incident either - as soon as he connected, he just walked to chat with his batting partner.

On current form and the amount of talent in the respective countries, India are far ahead of Pakistan. Forget the skill sets, even mentally, Pakistan have a lot of catching up to do. The key moments of the T20 World Cup 2026 game were elsewhere but it is this moment that symbolised how far ahead India are of their arch-rivals, especially in the shortest format.