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Pace versus grace

Prem Panicker

In an age where television -- with all the marketing hype attendant on that medium -- has taken over cricket, words like 'spectacular', 'brilliant', 'superhuman' and such are so often used that they lose all relevance.

Yet, two performances on the third day appeared to make even those adjectives appear tame, inadequate.

Saeed Anwar with the bat for Pakistan, Srinath with the ball for India -- the two players upped the ante in a series that has already produced some incredible performances. The first was all silken grace, the other fiery pace as they locked horns in a duel to determine the outcome of this Test.

And through the day, it was almost as if cricket was no longer a team game -- the two individuals overshadowed the other 20 players involved in this contest and, in the process, set things up for what looks like a spectacular finish to a Test that has see-sawed through three days of outstanding cricket.

Saeed Anwar, before the tour, had talked of wanting to get a Test triple century against India in India.

Tormented throughout his first five innings, by Prasad in particular, the left handed opener finally came into his own in the second innings at the Gardens, to carry his bat through in a superhuman effort. One statistic alone is needed to tell the tale of his dominance -- his career best undefeated 188 (off 259 balls, a cracking pace for a Test) came off a team score of 316, with only three other batsmen getting into double figures and only one of them, Yousuf Youhanna, getting to a half century.

He may not have got the triple century he promised himself -- but in terms of sheer value to his team, this effort was worth all that, and more. And it certainly does the heart good to see a class batsman coming back into his own -- Saeed Anwar is brilliant when he's brilliant, and today that brilliance was on parade at the Gardens in full glory.

Morning session

The first two hours on day three belonged entirely to Pakistan, with the overnight not outs not only surviving the first hour but, given that India has to bat last on this track, doing very well to share a partnership for the second wicket that took the initiative away from the Indians.

The pitch retained the odd patch of grass. The real point of interest was the crack we were talking about in the match report yesterday -- it runs along the pitch, starting around the good length spot, at the High Court End, which means the bowler operating from the Pavilion End would be bowling into it, and raising the possibility of uncertain bounce.

Srinath and Prasad began proceedings in the morning, the former looking a touch under par and not bowling with the kind of fire he had in the first innings. Prasad made the ball seam about quite nicely, troubling Anwar in particular -- the left handed opener was, in the first hour, noticeably looking to spend as much time as possible at the non-striker's end, taking singles, sometimes risky ones, off the first ball he faced and letting Saqlain take the bowling. The Indians could have, but did not, tighten the close field to ensure that Anwar stayed on strike -- and as time passed, the opener grew visibly in confidence.

Let off yesterday at a personal score of 2, he had another life today when he launched a huge hit at a Kumble flipper on a yorking length. The ball went under the bat, taking the bottom edge, but with Anwar well out of his ground, Mongia failed to react quick enough to grab the ball and run him out. He also played a few uppish cuts at both the quicks and the spinners during this session, but in the absence of a gully, survived his personal crisis of confidence and went in to lunch looking very ominous on 74.

Saqlain did his bit, and more, getting nicely into line, shrugging off the occasions when he was beaten and holding his end up, denying the Indians the early breakthrough they were looking for. His dismissal was fortuitous -- Harbhajan, from the Pavilion End, made one take off and turn from that crack we've been talking about since late last evening, got the batsman pushing forward, the turn and bounce beating the bat for the ball to balloon off the pad to the keeper. Umpire Orchard figured Saqlain had got a touch -- Saqlain distinctly unlucky to get the verdict against him.

Ijaz, looking a bit nervy, hung on till the break, and Pakistan at 113/2 look in a very good position at the lunch break -- in fact, their position looked about on par with what India had been in, at the same time, on day two.

In the morning, the Indians on the field lacked the edge that was needed to take out quick wickets, and their lackadaisical approach told on the bowlers, with none of the four on view really looking likely to break through.

Interestingly, Kumble bowled all his overs from the High Court end, while Harbhajan came on from the Pavilion End. The crack was wasted on the offie, since it is around the middle stump line and an off spinner wouldn't pitch there too often, whereas it was perfect for Kumble to land his flippers in. This will definitely rank as a bet that was missed by the team's think tank.

Post lunch session

While Anwar stepped up a gear after lunch, Ijaz -- who, against an overall average in the high 30s, has under ten against India -- continued his miserable run. A very good over from Srinath had him, time and again, nodding appreciation. The next over, Srinath made one move away late outside off, Ijaz squared up, got the touch and Mongia did the rest.

For connoisseurs of coincidences, this Test has produced more than its share -- both teams all out in exactly the same number of overs, India 26/1 at the end of the first day and Pak on the same score at the end of the second. Another coincidence came with the Ijaz dismissal -- at 147/2, the same score India was on after lunch yesterday when Akthar produced those two dream deliveries.

Anwar calmly stroked his way to his 100, doing the last lap through singles as the Indians kept the pressure on him. The landmark came off 139 deliveries, with 13 fours and a six. At that point, the team score was 151 -- which meant that Anwar was doing just under two-thirds of the scoring out there, and doing it at a brisk clip what's more.

Yousuf Youhanna did not look at his most fluent during this period, but to his credit he played sensibly, looking for singles, letting the well-set Anwar do most of the hard work. The two took Pakistan to tea on 203/3, with Anwar on 136 and Youhanna on 16.

90 runs came in the post lunch session, off 29 overs for the loss of Ijaz, and Pakistan at that point was looking rock solid -- with one session still to go today, plus six more over the next two days, the batting side could have been looking at taking a 350-plus lead by lunch tomorrow, leaving itself at least five full sessions to bowl out the Indians.

What worked for the Pakistan side was partnerships -- 26 for the first wicket, 68 for the second, 53 for the third, the fourth at that point already 50+ (Youhanna and Anwar in fact went on to add 114 before being separated). It also indicates the value of one batsman batting through -- Anwar was the dominant player in each of those partnerships, his partners did not get much, but the fact that they stayed there meant the runs kept coming.

India tried just about everything. Tendulkar being off the field for treatment to his back till just before tea, he couldn't bowl -- but even the part time off spin of both V V S Laxman and Sadagopan Ramesh was called on in an attempt to try and stem the rot. Against determined batting against a mostly defensive field, however, none of the bowlers in the session after lunch looked likely to run through the batting side.

Post tea session

Drama of every conceivable kind was on offer after the tea break. With Anwar seemingly settling down for the really long haul, Youhanna took command and opened out into some flowing strokeplay, especially against the spinners.

The landmarks came thick and fast. Anwar's 150 (out of a total, at the time, of 237). Youhanna's own 50, with the batsman looking very fluent as he accumulated time out there in the middle and gained in confidence. The lead progressing beyond the 200 mark...

And landmark put India further and further behind, the fielding side's faces becoming as long as the odds against it, at that point.

Tendulkar, leading the side with Azharuddin in the pavilion, claimed the new ball bang on schedule. And with the second over that Srinath bowled with the new ball, the drama began. Before the curtain came down, 7 wickets were to fall for the addition of just 54 more runs.

Rahul Dravid was sent back to deep backward square, and Srinath produced a well directed bouncer. Youhanna went for the hook and clinically picked out the fielder, the ball bouncing too high to enable the batsman to keep it down. Youhanna there was a bit guilty of gifting it away, after batting himself back into form -- especially since the trap had been deliberately set for him. He is a classy batsman, very well organised technically, but there is a touch of arrogance about the lad that has proved his undoing time and again on this tour. Hopefully, this dismissal at a time when he looked like he could get the big one will give him pause for some thought.

Shahid Afridi came out at that point, with the risk for the Indians being that a blitz from him could completely take the game out of the home team's hands. Ironically, he was shielded against the new ball by dropping him down the order, but as it turned out, he came to the crease to face the second new ball.

Srinath greeted him with a blistering bouncer, not too short but with a lot of shoulder going into the delivery, the ball kicking up straight at Afridi's face from only fractionally short of good length. The batsman could do little but bring his hands up in a gesture of defense, the ball going off the glove to second slip to complete the dismissal.

That brought Salim Malik to face the hat-trick ball. Tendulkar brought in three slips, a gully, a short square in a bid to turn on the pressure and Srinath produced another beauty, just around off and seaming away, drawing Malik into it and finding the edge with the late away movement. It went like a regulation slip catch -- only, Ganguly was a shade late getting down to it, ended up scooping it up on the bounce. He threw it up in the air in his excitement but the ball had clearly bounced, and Srinath, after doing everything right, found the hat-trick eluding him.

An over later, however, he struck again to collect the first ten-wicket match haul of his career. This time, he made one hurry back off the seam, Malik walking into a defensive push and being beaten for pace and movement, was hit on the knee roll in front of middle. There was some question about whether the ball could have slid past leg stump, but from the replay, it looked like Malik had taken it on the walk, the strike between off and middle line and Bucknor reckoning that was good enough to affirm the appeal.

Prasad then joined the party, bowling a lovely bouncer on middle and off. Moin went to hook, found it climbing, tried to get his bat out of line and ending up tapping it to Mongia to reduce Pakistan to 301/7.

Srinath by then was in the kind of mood where the captain, even if he wanted to, couldn't get the ball out of his hand. Having raced in after his 7th over for a change of shirt, he was back again, and striking, with a delivery pitching off, seaming in fractionally for Azhar Mahmood, walking into a defensive push, to be beaten for movement, Umpire Bucknor again finding merit in the LBW appeal to reduce Pakistan to 302/8.

Akram became the next victim, and this was an intelligent piece of bowling. The Pakistan captain, who had dished a few short ones to Srinath, had every expectation of getting the same treatment. Instead, Srinath slanted one across him on a full length, pitching middle and off and making the ball climb and seam away, to find the edge of Akram's defensive push, Mongia lunging in front of Azhar at first slip to hold a great catch.

Shoaib Akthar had undone three Indian batsmen with quick inswinging yorkers. Here, he found himself getting a taste of the selfsame medicine as Srinath finished things off with one that swung in late and pitched at the base of the stumps, going through the batsman's defences to finish the innings, giving Pakistan an overall lead of 279.

That lead was kept in manageable proportions only thanks to a superlative spell by the pace spearhead, so yet again, India had its bowlers to thank for undoing the damage done by the batsmen.

The Indian openers had two overs to face. Ramesh, who doesn't seem to have a single nerve in his body, started off with a flicked four through midwicket, then swayed out of line of two well directed bouncers from Shoaib Akthar steaming in and going flat out in the first over.

But then, good sense prevailed. In the first innings, Laxman had complained to Bucknor that he couldn't see the ball. Two deliveries later, he was gone, bowled through the gate. Here, both openers promptly appealed after the second of the two bouncers and Bucknor had no trouble giving them the light, play for the third day running being halted at 5.10 in the evening.

That leaves 275 to get over two full days of play, or 180 overs of batting time -- not, on the surface, a task that should be out of reach of a strong batting lineup. However, the Pakistan quicks are as good with the old ball as the Indians are with the new, and that -- plus Saqlain bowling into the increasing rough -- will prove a daunting hurdle. Coach Anshuman Gaekwad, for his part, indicated that the Indians were confident, that they were mentally anticipating a 350-run chase and that 275 looked do-able. It perhaps is -- but it also pays to remember that other than the world record chase of 406 at Port of Spain way back in 1975, the next highest winning total for India in the fourth innings was 256, and that came even further back in time.

A lot of application, determination, is going to be required here -- while, for Pakistan, a few less no balls would make its task a touch easier.

Postscript: My mailbox today had quite a few letters from folks who had read Azharuddin's diatribe against reporters in his latest signed column in The Sportstar -- the mailers wanting to know what I made of it.

Azhar is well within his rights to attack the media, since he so obviously believes that we have some kind of hatchet going against the Indian skipper. And if we can write, so can he, and that is as it should be -- in fact, I believe it is a stupid policy on the part of the board not to allow the Indian cricketers to be more forthcoming with the media, and even in their own personal writing.

I can't help pointing out a couple of things, though. One instance Azhar brings up is that when the Pakistan openers were rocketing away before lunch in New Delhi, many in the media had written that Azhar was unduly defensive with 420 on the board. The Indian skipper says we reporters don't have a clue about his thinking, that he was trying to slow things down at that point.

Fair enough, though 'slowing it down' seems a strange way to describe 100 runs coming off just 20 overs -- not to mention that with that kind of total to defend, attacking to get wickets did seem the better way to go. But hey, he is the captain, it is his call, so be it.

However, there is this. This diatribe comes after a win. Fair enough -- however, the media, or at least this member thereof, has a request: will Azhar, for the benefit of cricket fans who invest enormous amounts of mental energy following the fortunes of the team, be equally forthcoming when the team loses, will he explain the various decisions taken at the time?

We would all love to know what is going on out there and since the Indian skipper does write a column, perhaps he could use it to let us into the ins and outs of the games we play?

Or will we get such angry explanations only after a win, while following a defeat, we are back to 'We fielded badly, bowled badly, and didn't bat too well'?

One thing the Indian skipper needs to learn, is that the media too has an enormous amount of emotion invested in this team, and genuinely wishes to see it perform to its peak -- we don't write only because we are paid to do so. Oh well...

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