There was no green-top at the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore for the first Test -- but by the time the day's play was done, there were lots of red faces among the Indians.
22 months ago, India ended the first day's play of the first Test in Pakistan on 356/2. Today, Pakistan returned the complement, closing on 326/2 off 82 overs, with bad light cutting out eight overs of the allotted 90.
It was -- at least from the batting side -- classic Test cricket. Inzamam-ul Haq won the toss and, with sunny skies above and a featherbed of a pitch at his feet, opted to bat. The first session was about attrition, the second about accumulation, the third about full-throttle acceleration.
There was early -- and unlooked for -- joy for the Indians when Shoaib Malik pushed a ball onto the on side. Salman Butt backed up too far, then turned casually and ambled back towards his crease. Yuvraj Singh raced across from square leg, picked up, and threw down the stumps -- and a surprised Salman Butt was caught a half foot or so out of his ground.
The Indians were all smiles -- for the last time today. Younis Khan survived an early, and confident, LBW shout when Irfan Pathan bent one back in off the seam; from that point on, he took control in a manner reminiscent of his Bangalore 2005 heroics.
It was classic Younis -- a stream of singles early on and, once he got his feet moving, controlled shot-making with a marked offside bias. Driving both off the pitch and on the up, cutting when the ball was even fractionally short, Younis made a placid pitch seem even more comatose.
At the other end Shoaib Malik batted contrary to type, buckling down to the job of strike rotation and attritive run accumulation. Where his partner hit his shots with a flowing flourish, Malik was content to soften his grip and steer the ball around the infield, turning on the power only when the bowlers erred in line and length. Malik's batting was so uncharacteristically sedate that it almost came as a surprise when, in Harbhajan Singh's second over of the day, he waltzed out to loft the offie over wide long on for a superb six.
Pakistan went in to lunch comfortably placed on 110/1 in 33 overs; the second session proved even more bountiful, with the same number of runs coming off four overs less. Malik was the sole casualty of the session -- Pathan angled a ball across the right hander, Malik drove with foot superglued in place and bat well away from body, and popped it up to Harbhajan at mid off.
Mohammad Yousuf has a rep for being a nervous starter; Anil Kumble early on hassled him with fullish deliveries that regularly beat the defensive pushes. Yousuf -- and Younis -- were both lucky to get the right end of marginal LBW shouts, but once over that brief period of nervousness, Yousuf in particular eased into free-flowing strokeplay that rapidly took the game -- or what remained of it -- away from the Indians while Younis admired his partner, and occasionally tossed a handsome drive or cut into the communal kitty.
Rahul Dravid had, in the morning session, shuffled his bowlers around fairly well; in the second session, he seemed to have misplaced the plot. Harbhajan, the best Indian bowler on view before lunch, waited an hour and a half into the post-lunch session before finally getting a bowl. Anil Kumble had an overlong spell; Ajit Agarkar was indulged with a longish spell and even a change of ends, and even Sourav Ganguly was given a brief go before the off spinner was brought on.
By then, none of it mattered; both batsmen were set, and seemingly bent on doing unto the Indians what the visitors had done unto them in 2004.
The first hour of the post-tea session was perhaps the worst single session of play India has had in the last 12 months. It started with Harbhajan Singh getting creamed to the square boundary on the off in the first over after the break -- a shot played against the turn at a time when the offie was getting it to spin and bounce. And then came the clinical dismembering of Anil Kumble, in the course of three deliveries that destroyed whatever remained of his confidence.
The fifth ball of the 71st over was just a fraction short of length on off; Mohammad Yousuf rocked back and cut, late as you like, to the third man boundary with commendable finesse. The next ball was fuller, more on the stumps -- and was flicked, this time, to the fine leg fence. The first ball of the 73rd over was again just outside off, and just that fraction short -- Younis Khan, emulating his partner, laid back and cut to third man for four.
Immediately, Kumble went round the wicket and took to pitching a half foot or so outside leg stump with a packed leg field; not a line he was likely to get a wicket from unless the batsman was feeling particularly suicidal, but Kumble by would have been content to just stop bleeding fours. He didn't -- a short ball, an over later, was pulled with contempt over square leg for yet another boundary. By the time he was removed, he had gone for 89 off 141 deliveries; 21 singles, 10 twos, 2 threes, 9 fours and a ferocious pull for six by Yousuf when he pitched one short in the post-tea session is the autopsy report.
A day's play has been sufficient to underline the enormous problem India carries into this Test series -- the lack of penetrative bowling. Pathan bowled good tight lines -- but on a track that gave him no real movement off the seam, the left armer was reduced to a containing role; the number of deliveries that questioned the batsman's ability could be counted on one hand.
A further problem for Pathan is the workload he is having to bear -- with 21 overs to his name, he had a burden second only to Kumble's 23 overs; much more of this, and the only seam bowler with some pretensions to wicket-taking ability in the side could be reduced to a stock option.
Agarkar, quite simply, didn't turn up for the game but sent his evil twin instead; the one who bowls line and length for a ball or three and then shrugs and goes, the heck with it, let me try something different -- and sends down a ball with hit-me-please on it. Kumble, similarly, misplaced his radar -- too often, his line was middle and leg slanting outside; a line his captain strangely encouraged by giving him predominantly leg side fields.
Harbhajan Singh started off well, making the ball turn and bounce -- but spending a good 90 minutes in the outfield post lunch appeared to take the fizz out of him; his bowling in the second half of the day was pedestrian.
You never know whether it is the lackadaisical bowling that takes the fizz out of the fielding, or vice versa -- in any case, the Indians in the field were distinctly undercooked; strangely so given it's the first day of a long-awaited series.
None of this takes away from two contrasting, but equally brilliant, batting performances. Yousuf was almost contemptuous in his mastery of the bowling; Younis, outstanding especially in his play on the off side, where he seemed to be able, at will, to drive the ball anywhere in the arc from point to straight back past the bowler.
Khan -- whose last three knocks against India now read 267, 84 not out, and now 147 not out -- was majestic on the off, where he got 115 of his 147 runs. 29 of them came behind point, mostly through delicate late cuts; an amazing 69 came through the covers, and 17 through the mid off region. Yousuf was less partial -- 39 through midwicket, mostly through exquisite pulls and flicks, balanced 31 on the off through drives played, more often than not, on bended knee.
Pakistan, at close on day one, is on velvet. It has a sizeable total under its belt; it has in form batsmen yet to come. It has a balanced attack, with Sami and Akthar providing pace to Kaneria and Afridi's spin. And it gets to bowl last on a track that, if early indications are right, could start to go by day three.
The pitch deserves a word -- or maybe, an illustrative vignette. The bowler, Anil Kumble; the batsman, Younis Khan, in the period before lunch. The ball was flighted -- one of the few occasions the leg spinner indulged in some air. Younis went forward, feet and bat perfectly positioned for the drive. For no apparent reason, he then changed his mind, kept his feet in situ, transferred body weight onto the back leg, and late cut the ball to the third man boundary for four.
A track that lets you try two shots to one ball, on the first morning of a Test match, defies description.
Postscript: The news du jour was obviously the inclusion of Sourav Ganguly in the playing XI; it ended one debate, and began another -- to wit, where will he bat? With Virender Sehwag at the top of the order, said Dravid at the toss. But halfway through the first session, when the playing card was flashed on TV, it was Dravid who was marked down to open with Sehwag, while Ganguly was sandwiched between Yuvraj Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Ganguly, in fact, featured in probably the most animated segment of the day's telecast -- a bizarre segment wherein the former skipper was shown speaking with extreme animation to Rahul Dravid, who seemed to be hearing him out in impassive silence while, adjacent, coach Greg Chappell stood with eyes fixed not on the speaker, but on the listener.
Too much has been read into too many gestures already by too many people in too many ways; let the vignette rest unraveled.
In the list of mysteries left mysterious, add this: India-Pakistan is as big as it gets. Check. The atmosphere is electric. Check. The excitement is palpable. Check. The interest is tremendous. Check. So, pray tell, where in heck were the people? In the morning session the crowd was embarrassingly sparse; in the afternoon and evening the stands filled out somewhat -- yet, there were large gaps to be seen. What price excitement? Whither electricity?
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