Jos Buttler versus Shaheen Shah Afridi.
At another time, you could sell pay-per-view tickets on this match-up alone. England's greatest white-ball batter against one of the sport's rangy left-arm new-ball dons.
But in the context of their respective T20 World Cup campaigns, this meeting in Pallekele had more in common with two past-it boxers clutching for their greatness of the past. But on a fresh pitch where Pakistan had finished comfortably short of a 180 par-score, and under lights that would exaggerate movement for the seamers, there was scope to reclaim that greatness. Go clutch, kings.
And so Shaheen did. He started by dismissing Phil Salt with the first ball of the innings, then - after beating Buttler's outside edge with the final ball of the same over - found a grazed under-edge with the third ball of his next. The celebration was muted, perhaps because Shaheen empathised with the bloodshot resignation in Buttler's eyes, and the sloping shoulders that seemed to do most of the walking back to the England changing room.
Perhaps nothing sums up cricket's folly more than the fact that Buttler was, ostensibly, the happier of the two stars by the end of the match. Shaheen's 4 for 30 was a morale-boosting return after two matches on the sidelines, but his team now need favours to make it to the last four. Buttler's innings, by contrast, had been relegated to a footnote in England's semi-final-banking win. For the short term at least.
Unfortunately for Buttler, his World Cup campaign has been so poor that those three balls that he faced demand extrapolation to unpick the broader, sorry story.
That first ball from Shaheen had angled across the right-hander, and elicited a flat-footed thrust outside the eye-line, neither effective nor meaningful. His feet were just as rooted for the dismissal, despite having been put to use in between whiles, for a scampered two to deep square leg moments for his only scoring shot.
For the first time in a historic and decorated T20I career, Buttler has returned four successive single-figure scores. You have to go back to his penultimate delivery against West Indies in Mumbai, on February 11, for his last boundary: a towering launch over square leg off Roston Chase, before the offspinner had him caught at long-on from his very next ball. He has faced just 25 deliveries in his four innings since, managing just 15 runs.
Against Scotland and Italy - three runs off four balls in both - he skied medium-pace and offbreak, respectively, to mid-off. Orthodox left-armer Dinuth Wellalage trapped him lbw for Sri Lanka (7) before Tuesday's tickle behind to a short, wide seaming delivery. If variety is the spice of life, Buttler has scoffed four mouthfuls of cinnamon.
Somehow, Buttler may yet get to wash out that taste with champagne. Without a convincing performance to their name, England are still the first team to reach the final-four stage. They could end up slapstick-ing their way to a third World T20 title.
Buttler was not just captain but England's leading run-scorer when they lifted the trophy in 2022. But he is unrecognisable from the batter who struck 225 runs at 144.23 in Australia. He is averaging 10.33 at this edition, with 62 runs only just coming at more than a run a ball (110.71). In four years, he has gone from a talisman to a problem - one Brendon McCullum was pushed to solve on the morning of this match when suggesting Harry Brook promote himself to No.3 so England could make more of the powerplay.
Like all good captains, Brook's maiden T20I century took the heat off Buttler. But the issues blighting the 35-year old show no signs of relenting.
The technical deficiencies that have crept into Buttler's game have been laid bare across three different venues at this World Cup. His head is askew, and thus his balance is off, leading to a bat-path as straight as a nine-pound note. As for the footwork ... well, what footwork?
Some of this has been marinating over the winter. Since the end of the English summer - encompassing the tour of New Zealand, SA20, the pre-tournament series of Sri Lanka and the World Cup itself - he has been averaging 20.35 from 18 knocks. His one half-century, one of eight times he made it to 20 in that sequence, was a 97 for Durban Super Giants (DSG).
There are suggestions that it was during his stint with DSG that Buttler lost rhythm, with his franchise the most affected by adverse weather during the SA20. But, as if it's not hard enough to find a clear answer by poring over evidence across four different countries, pinning the blame on SA20 washouts would be a stretch.
Regardless of the South African climate, Buttler has been working hard to rectify his issues. Prior to the Super Eight opener against Sri Lanka, he bedded in for a long net session that overlapped with his teammates going through fielding drills. On Monday, he was the only member of the XI to train, in another chunky stint with assistant coach Marcus Trescothick.
It is worth noting that, among McCullum's many ideas, beasting yourself in training to get yourself out of a funk is not one of them. In fact, at his white-ball unveiling in September 2024, McCullum had vowed to reinvigorate a "miserable" Buttler, then his captain, ideally by imparting some of his famously upbeat mindset. Now, however, the team are pushing on for glory with Buttler, back in the ranks and out of runs, looking more miserable than ever.
He seems far enough down the rabbit hole that he is trying to find comfort against a combination of his own bowlers, local spinners, dog sticks and even wet tennis balls. There are parallels to how he tried to arrest slumps during his Test career on long tours. Those did not prove fruitful, either.
The "F*** It" attitude - a mantra he etched onto the shoulder of his bat to coax out his devil-may-care side - has been lost in the "don't f*** it up" doubt. It's a crippling fear that undermines what makes him the cricketer all know him to be.
England will be concerned, but can rest easy knowing they have won the most important matches so far without leaning on a prized asset. Like a slot machine, they will be of the mind that Buttler will pay out eventually, and pay out big when it matters.
Even if he fails again against New Zealand in Colombo on Friday, it seems unfathomable that England will drop him. And they would be cutting off their nose to spite their face if they tried to shoehorn Buttler into an already functioning middle-order to correct his dysfunction at the top.
Publicly at least, Brook, McCullum and the rest of the England side believe Buttler is exactly where he needs to be - in the XI, up top, central to their hopes of beating the best teams in the world. As difficult as it may be for Buttler right now, he has no choice but to believe that too.