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Yeh dil maange score!

History doesn't repeat itself. At least, not in its entirety.

Some 14 years back, Pakistan under Imran Khan shot through the Indian batting lineup, dismissing them for 125 -- at Sharjah, on a Friday final. During the break, Kapil Dev, leading the Indians, said: "If they can get us out, we can get them out, too." And they did just that -- blasting Pakistan out for just under 90 to pull off an improbable win.

This time, it was Wasim Akram's turn to lead Pakistan from the front with a superlative display of bowling that had India on the mat, and reeling, by the time the innings was six balls old. And when the last man went, the Indian score was exactly 125. Interestingly, in that match, Pakistan cruised to 40-odd before the first wicket fell, then slid dramatically -- and with the score on 40, here, Afridi came down the track in Kumble's first over, blasted one back down the track and Kumble was a fraction late getting down to clutch onto a hot chance.

Which was as far as history went with its encore -- it was as if history then turned amnesiac, forgetting how it was all supposed to end.

The game was played on the pitch used for the first match -- which meant that by now, it was about 10 days old. Two rest days meant the ground staff got time to water and roll it -- producing the kind of track that behaves itself for a while, before slowing down; the kind of pitch on which 225 would be a defensible score, 245 or more a winning one.

Wasim Akram opted to play himself despite running a fever. Pakistan dropped the extra batsman in Malik, brought in Youhanna for Wasti, and beefed up its bowling with Arshad Khan coming back.

For India, Azharuddin returned to lead the side, Kambli losing his place. And India opted to go in with three seamers, playing Agarkar, Prasad and Srinath in tandem with Kumble providing whatever spin was required.

If India had any psychological advantage going into the game thanks to its win in the final league encounter, it took Akram all of five deliveries to negate it. Ramesh was struck on the pad off the very first ball. Not out, ball angled to leg. Ball two, edge onto pad. Ball three, rapped in front, pushing forward half-heartedly with the front foot and taking the ball in front of off. No problem for the umpire.

The next ball took out Rahul Dravid -- a doubtful decision, and one that appeared to shock the batsman. The ball pitched middle and seamed in to leg, Dravid went forward and flicked to leg, missed, got it on the pad in front of leg. The angle meant the ball would be seaming past leg, but the umpire thought otherwise. And off the very next ball, Azhar got a fuller length ball, on the pad and bang in front of middle stump -- but Akram, striving for that hat-trick, had over-stepped.

One run -- off the no ball. Two wickets. And a rattled Azharuddin. Akram had pulled the mental advantage back Pakistan's way, and it had taken him one over to do it in.

What was needed from that point on was calm, sensible batting. What we got were more wickets. Akthar pitched one outside off, Azhar pushed at it with feet in place and bat away from body, and found second slip with ease.

Ajay Jadeja and Saurav Ganguly -- the latter had stood at the other end, with a bemused air, as batsmen paraded two and fro at the other end -- then batted calmly for a spell. Runs weren't exactly cascading, but given the match situation, it would have been too much to expect. However, the pair saw off Akram and Akthar -- the latter, on the day, not bowling with the fire and venom of previous outings at this venue; while the speed gun was registering up around the 148kmph mark, he was pitching too short, too often, and on this pitch, the ball lost a lot of its steam after pitching.

And then wicket number four went down -- and some good captaincy by Akram precipitated it. Reckoning that the batsmen were hardly likely to go over the top, he brought all his fielders into the circle. That meant that the batsmen kept finding the fielders with their pushes and drives. Jadeja fell for the temptation of trying to take advantage of the lack of boundary riders -- coming down the track, he attempted to blast one over the infield, but Saeed Anwar, timing his jump to a nicety, went high to take one with both hands overhead.

Srinath was sent in, probably more as a protective measure, an attempt to keep Robin back till the ball had lost a little bit more of the sheen. To a ball outside off, the batsman went for the lofted drive over mid off, got the outer edge, and Moin held. It was a close call, with neither of the field umpires being sure whether the ball had actually carried. The third umpire took a couple of looks at the action replay, and though it was all blurred, upheld the appeal. And then, after the batsman had walked back into the hut, they showed the slo-mo. One frame at a time, magnifying and following the ball -- and indicating clearly that it had landed just ahead of Moin's gloves.

No suggestion there that Moin had claimed a catch he hadn't made -- when it is that close, and you are taking it on the forward dive, you are never sure. No suggestion, either, that the third umpire got it wrong -- from the replays he got, he had to give the decision. What was difficult to understand was why, when the slo-mo technology was available, they waited till the decision was given before actually using it to show it was the wrong decision.

Robin Singh looked tentative out in the middle, but hung on for a while before glancing to third man and pushing for a second run that always looked iffy. Afridi produced a flat, hard return from the deep and Robin was caught short.

The next man in was Mongia -- and his dismissal owed to yet another run out, a rather hairy one this time and again, given by the third umpire seemingly in the face of the evidence. Again, the angles shown defied logic -- when the decision was being made, they showed the straight angle, from the straight camera. And once the decision was made, they switched to the side angle -- and suddenly, things weren't quite as clear.

Which is not to say that these decisions changed the course of the game, but it did underline the point being made in recent times -- and endorsed by the likes of Steve Waugh, for one -- that increasingly, the angles being produced by broadcasters, and their replays, are not really all they should be. From a World Cup point of view, it is therefore reassuring that fixed line cameras will be provided, independent of the broadcasters' cameras, to help the third umpire decide on these close calls.

Ganguly had played brilliantly till that point. He weathered the initial attempts by Akthar and Akram to rattle him with short pitched bowling, kept his cool, pushed the singles and generally played with a calm assurance that belied the events at the other end of the pitch. And then came an incident when he drove at Afridi and missed. There was a huge appeal for caught behind, which was negatived. Off the next ball, he took the single -- and when he reached the bowler's end, Afridi let him have an earful. Ganguly was seen complaining to the third umpire at that point.

Off the first ball of the next over, he suddenly came down the track and lashed out at Arshad Khan -- the manner of his playing the shot indicating that he had allowed the incident to get to him. All he did manage, though, was to hole out to long off to end a determined -- and given what he has endured earlier in this tournament, brave -- innings.

Anil Kumble added to the quota of run outs by pushing to point, taking off and failing to beat Ijaz's direct throw -- again, there really was no run there, Ijaz is a very good point fielder with an accurate arm.

Ajit Agarkar had batted in a fashion that made you remember that he actually started out as a batsman, not a bowler. He was behind the line to everything, and played authentic cricket shots but Wasim Akram, coming back, did him with a beauty that pitched off and middle, darted back in late off the seam and went through his defences to take out the bails.

125 all out, thanks largely to a superlative opening spell by Akram, and some committed fielding by the Pakistan side. The batting had let the side down yet again, and the fact that the side failed to bat out the 50 overs was merely another entry in the debit side.

It was all very well to recall history, but at the halfway stage, the one thought that remained was, Yeh dil maange score.

There just wasn't enough on the board to make the second half of the game anything more than a mere formality, really.

The Indians to their credit tried. Azharuddin kept two slips in place for Prasad, three for Srinath -- and it almost worked as Srinath found Afridi's edge in his third over, only for it to fly just wide of third slip. Kumble came in, in the 11th over, and Afridi off the second ball he faced blasted one back at the bowler, low and hard, only for Kumble to fail to cling on. In the next over, Anwar mishooked an Agarkar bouncer that Prasad held at deep backward square -- but the umpire had ruled it a no ball, for height.

Afridi -- who rather needlessly ran close enough to Srinath to bang him with the handle of his bat (prompting a surprisingly gentle protest from the bowler) -- fell in the 13th, lofting one impossibly high in the air (that ball must have felt oxygen deprived at the height of its travels) for Ganguly, at mid off, to hold a superbly judged catch. He had to look into the lights, pick the white ball out of the bank of lights and hold in front of his body, and he did it with panache.

Two overs later, Kumble produced a googly that Anwar misread, getting the leading edge for a simple caught and bowled.

That brought Inzamam and Ijaz together, and India had a small window of opportunity there. They attacked with all they had, but both the experienced middle order batsmen clung on, weathered probing spells by the Indian bowlers, and put Pakistan into an impregnable position. There was a Kumble appeal for LBW that was turned down, against Inzamam, the strike happening in front of middle on the back foot -- but by then, Pakistan were in a position where they needed just around 30 to win, and the decision would have made little point in any case. Once they were sure the target was under control, Inzamam took over and began blasting the bowlers to all parts of the field, finishing off the job in a hurry to take Pakistan through to an eight wicket win with plenty of overs to spare.

It did, though, leave a bad taste in the mouth to see Inzamam, taking off for a run and finding Srinath in the way (the bowler was looking the other way, looking to collect the throw, a situation similar to the one in Calcutta involving Shoaib Akthar and Sachin Tendulkar), putting his hand up and short-arming him with a fierce push that sent Srinath staggering. That was needless, really, and unlooked for from someone like Inzamam.

In all events, a fine win for Pakistan, who yet again played as a team, and looked committed no matter what they were doing -- batting, bowling, or fielding. They are being led from the front by a bowler at his peak, and the team seems to have come together as a hard, fighting, dedicated unit under him.

For India, all bowlers barring Agarkar did well -- but that young men produced a stream of short-pitched bowling and long hops that the Pakistan batsmen creamed. And, in the process, he took away whatever pressure there was on the batting side.

There are problems in plenty facing the Indians -- an analysis of which can be deferred to a later column, for the World Cup pages. But one thing is evident -- the batting has, of late, been failing to put up the kind of scores the bowlers need. The problem has consistently dogged India on the subcontinent, and in Sharjah -- in England, where the side is unlikely to encounter ideal batting conditions, that same problem could assume nightmarish proportions.

Perhaps Pepsi, which has been pumping a lot of money into World Cup-related advertising, could with some truth change its punchline, to read: Yeh dil maange score.

The main awards were:

Bowler of the tournament: Shoaib Akthar

Best fielder: Ajay Jadeja

Man of the match for the final: Wasim Akram

Man of the series: Venkatesh Prasad

Player of the tournament (winning a state of the art Opel): Shoaib Akthar

Post match comments: Mohammad Azharuddin: "Yeah, I think we lost three in the first 15 and after that we couldn't get back into the game, I think Pakistan played better than us today, all congratulations to them."

Wasim Akram: "We've been playing excellent cricket these last three months, and the team has pulled together brilliantly, they deserve this success. When we lost the last two games, people have been accusing us needlessly of match-fixing, this is our response. I think everyone from the coach down to all the players wanted to win, they played to win, and that is how they have always been playing. We reckon the best form of defence is attack, and that is what we have been doing these last few months."'

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