An India-Pakistan rivalry on a cricket pitch is widely regarded as the greatest in all sports. Despite the tense atmosphere, cricketers of both the South Asian rivals have friendly relations with each other and share a brotherly bond. As the two teams prepare to battle in the Asia Cup, India talisman Virat Kohli and Pakistan skipper Babar Azam met in Dubai on Wednesday with their meeting taking the internet by storm.

The Men in Blue had just concluded their practice session when Rohit Sharma and his boys arrived and it is when Virat Kohli and Babar Azam met. The 33-year-old India superstar shook hands with the top-ranked batter in T20Is and gave him a big smile while doing so. Babar Azam was equally delighted to meet the former India captain. The legendary Mohammad Yousuf, who is accompanying the Pakistan team as their batting coach also had a long interaction with Virat Kohli before they left for the hotel.

Pictures and videos of the two stalwarts of modern-day cricket meeting each other not like arch-rivals but friends went viral on Twitter. The fire even spread to a Pakistan Super League (PSL) team Quetta Gladiators. The PSL franchise posted Virat Kohli and Babar Azam's snapshot on social media and requested the fans to caption it.

The netizens came up with some crazy replies to Quetta Gladiators' post on Virat Kohli's handshake with Babar Azam.

Virat Kohli has been going through an extended dry spell with the bat. During the recent tour of England, the former India captain managed to score just 76 runs in his six outings in a Test match, and two ODIs and T20Is each.

While he perished at scores of 11 and 20 in the rescheduled fifth and final Test against the Three Lions in Edgbaston, Virat Kohli was dismissed for 1 and 11 in the T20I games in Birmingham and Trent Bridge.

Though he missed the first clash of the ODI series because of a groin injury, he didn't succeed in changing his fortunes in the remaining two 50-over matches as he registered a total of 33 runs, making 16 and 17 at the Lord's and Old Trafford respectively.

Before that, Virat Kohli had a horror run in the Indian Premier League (IPL) as he could score only 341 runs at a mediocre average of 22.73 in 16 games in the tournament.

Virat Kohli last made a century in any form of international cricket in the historic Pink-ball Test against Bangladesh in November 2019.

Since then, he has gone 78 consecutive knocks without a three-figure score on the international stage.

However, seeing Virat Kohli struggle on a cricket pitch isn't a good sight for anyone, even for his fiercest rivals. Unlike several former India cricketers, Babar Azam, the man who has often been compared with Virat Kohli, came out in support of the beleaguered Delhi-born batter. “This too shall pass. Stay strong. #ViratKohli,” the Pakistan skipper wrote on Twitter.

Virat Kohli responded to his message, writing, “Thank you. Keep shining and rising. Wish you all the best.”

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Babar Azam later explained the rationale behind his post.

“As a player myself, I know you can go through such a phase (out of form) and I also know what a player goes through in such a phase. In those times, you need support. I just tweeted thinking that it will give just some support. He is one of the best players,” Babar Azam said during a press conference in Galle where Pakistan and Sri Lanka are taking on each other in the first Test.

“He is playing a lot of cricket and he knows how to come out of these situations. It takes time, if you back players, it will be really good,” Babar Azam added.

Meanwhile, Babar Azam has broken numerous Virat Kohli records of late. The Pakistan skipper first went past the India star’s milestone of being the fastest captain to a thousand runs in T20Is. Subsequently, Babar Azam became the only cricketer in the world to hit three consecutive hundreds in ODIs twice.

In June, the Lahore-born player leapfrogged Virat Kohli to occupy the No.1 spot in the T20I rankings for the longest reign at the top. While Virat Kohli sat at the perch for 1,013 days during the last decade, Babar Azam has surpassed that total with his continuing stay at the numero uno position in the ICC’s charts.

Babar Azam and Virat Kohli will be up against each other when their respective sides meet in a blockbuster Asia Cup clash in Dubai this Sunday.

The last time India and Pakistan met on a cricket field, it was Babar Azam and his boys who accomplished their first ever win over the Men in Blue in a World Cup, beating their larger neighbor by 10 wickets in the ICC T20 World Cup in the UAE last year.