Cricket India

One thing I forgot to mention in my yesterday's post was the contribution by Sourav Ganguly. A batsman engulfed in self-doubt,  made more vulnerable by his spat with the coach and exposed brutally by the pacemen all over the world recently, Ganguly quite surprisingly played a tight innings in India's first innings at Karachi. The ball was doing all sorts of things in the morning session but he played with such discipline that he made one think of his glorious hundred against the sharp Aussie pace. in its own den  He ignored all the balls outside the line of the stumps, hit only the half volleys and the over pitched stuff. Very soon, he created the impression that he might go on to play a match-saving knock and make his place in this current dispensation secure for a long time. He was batting with his mind and not with his hands and legs. The tightness in his approach was so assuring that one thought India might reach a comfortable  position at stumps on the second day. But that was not to be  and he perished at his first indiscretion.

Ganguly made it very clear that he might not be such a liability to the strong Indian batting. But a swallow does not make the summer. I doubt if he can keep the momentum going. If he can. he can surely become part of this rejuvenated Team India for some more time. 

At last after two highly forgettable tests, Pakistan has mustered courage to prepare a cracker of a pitch.

As I wrote last time, Pakistan has the artillery to push India into a difficult position from which recovery may be almost impossible provided their pace battery gets a sporting pitch. Now that they were given exactly that and they showed that they could outperform India in that department.

The pre-lunch session showed that it was a crucial toss to win for India. But the inherent limitations of this pace attack allowed Pakistan to wriggle out of a major crisis and post a fairly comfortable total.

And when India started their innings, the Pakistani bowlers were all over it. Akhtar with his furious pace, Asif with his tremendous guile and accuracy and Razzaque with his surprising bounce and lateral movement, just demolished the myth of Indian superiority at least on such bowler-friendly tracks.

The pitch at Karachi showed different colors at different times. It was at its unfriendliest mood in the mornings -first and second days- and eased a little after the first session while retaining its ability to respond to the bowler who can make it jag back. The Indian bowlers did some magnificent work on the opening morning, with Pathan getting a superb beautifully crafted hat-trick in his first over. But as the sun  forced the moisture to sneak out of the pitch,. the Indian attack began to lose its sting. They looked pedestrian on a definitely helpful surface. Kamran Akmal  played the innings of his life and he and Razzaque pulled Pakistan out of trouble and put their team back into the game.

Now at the end of the second day, the hosts are in an unassailable position. Only an improbable regaining of venom by the track plus a cloud cover and supported by some insipid Pakistani batting would enable India to claw back into a winning position.

Now it looks highly unlikely.

Now about a particular delivery. Asif cajoling a good length ball to dart back more than a yard to crash on the Lakshman's stumps. A great delivery which would claim even the best in the business.

 

What a ridiculous farce this India-Pak series is turning out to be! Thousand plus runs for the loss of eight wickets of which quite a few were not really earned in the first test. Thousand six hundred plus for 22 wickets  in five full days' play at Faisalabad! It simply shows that Pakistan has not got over the India blues even after two almost back to back series. People have started to talk about over exposure  and thus the two boards have decided to have a series once in two years. It is against this background that this peevish way of handling an important series is to be seen. Pakistan has a strong pace battery which on helpful tracks could trouble any batting line up including India's. Their batting is in no way weak. Perhaps a notch or two below India's but they are competent enough to tackle difficult situations. Especially with the home advantage, they could have shown some aggression in their approach to the contest against India. Instead they resorted to the old cold war methods of not bowing before the enemy at any cost.

What they have done primarily is to waste a reasonable opportunity to get the better of India especially after a great series against England who beat the world champion Australia. We saw during the second test that  Akhtar made a few balls whistle past the Indian heads even on this placid pitch. Kaneria made the ball turn to an extent our more famous duo couldn't manage to do. All these point to the possibilities ahead of the Pakistanis had they decided to adopt a realistic response to the Indian challenge.

There were centuries galore. Younis khan, Inzamam, Afridi, Mohammad Yousef, Dravid and Dhoni plus some useful contributions like Lakshman's. But that the man of the match went to the debutant bowler R.P.Singh talks volumes of the respect these huge scores commanded.

The Pakistani think tank might have been sobered up by now  by the criticism even within their country. But that I don't think will influence their thinking and prompt them to go for a sporting wicket so that the better team will win. But  Karachi may not as meaningless as the other two matches as everybody is fed up with this sort of farcical fear of defeat.  

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Thus the long-awaited series has begun soaked in a flood of runs piled up on a sleeping beauty. Five days of cricket, interrupted by a few hours of  indifferent light and a few spells of fine drizzle, produced just eight wickets of which two were run outs. This, it seems, is the greatest advertisement against test cricket in an era where the limited over versions show signs of getting shrunk even further. When Twenty-20 knocks on the door of 50-over matches, such pitches help a lot in pulling the average cricket fan away from the test arena.

This was a pitch so devoid of any movement off the surface that Virender Sehwag could just stand and swing his bat with abandon, connecting most of the time. On a seaming track, any one of his strokes could have ended up in the umbrella that was not there.

When the Pakistanis began their loot, the initial impression was that they had sorted out the Indian pace attack. But it became evident that the runs were not created by the increased efficiency of the Pak batsmen but a gift of the dead pitch. The only doubt one had was: would India crumble in front of the mountain of a score they have to climb. When that did not happen, all the interest in the match got focussed on Sehwag's chances of going past Lara's record. But the light had its own plans. Soon it was clear that there wasn't enough time even for Sehwag to do that. But such calculations went through the window as Sehwag in his quixotic way, got himself out on the threshold of a new opening wicket record! The man who lives by the sword dies by the sword!

Dravid. When everything else goes his way, one little problem dogs him with great determination. The think tank of the tourists had voted in an obviously non-cricketing decision to play Sourav Ganguly ignoring the two specialist openers. And that decision meant there was no natural partner for Sehwag. Ganguly obviously was not willing to open in a test match when his career was dependent on his making use of the few occasions that have come his way. That meant India's most dependable batsman had to walk out with Sehwag to begin India's reply. Not that Dravid was a wrong choice for the opening slot with all his experience against the new ball but his success in that position has made things only more complicated. Now that Dravid has done well as an opener, he can't say that he won't open again. And the Indian opening pair's phenomenal success has pushed the selectors into a corner. Ganguly who did not get a chance to bat at Lahore has to be given one more chance. Which means the opening wicket problem will not be solved that easily. What Dravid did perhaps spoke volumes about the integrity and technical expertise of that great player but he was doing a disservice to the Indian cause by batting well at number two.