After four years, India, Pakistan face off again on cricket ground

Four years after Pakistani gunmen laid siege to India's financial capital of Mumbai, South Asia's two nuclear-armed neighbors are meeting again on the cricket ground, marking a gradual thaw in their decades-old rivalry.

The first bilateral series between India and Pakistan since November 2007, comprising two Twenty20 matches and three one-day internationals, begins on Christmas Day with a T20 match in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

Analysts see the cricket series as a sign the two sides are ready to move past the enmity that followed the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, when 10 Pakistan-based gunmen killed 166 people in a three-day rampage across Mumbai.

India blamed the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group for the attacks and demanded that Islamabad crack down on terrorism.

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