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Pakistan take Asian Test title

There was only one team in this competition -- and deservedly, that team took the first Asian Test Championship title with a crushing innings and 175 run defeat of Sri Lanka before tea on day four of the final at the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka.

An exhaustive review of the third and fourth day's play would be a bit of a wasted effort. Simply because, with all due respect to the Sri Lankan side, they simply were not in the same planet as the Pakistan team -- the final proving to be the most one-sided Test in recent memory.

Through it all, one man towered over the other 21 -- Wasim Akram, who in recent weeks has been breaking records like they were going out of style. Two hat-tricks in back to back Tests. The only man in cricket history to have hat-tricks in both versions of the game. The bowler credited with dismissing the most number of batsmen for a duck. And so on, and on, and on... Mohandas Menon will be providing the comprehensive update on this site shortly, so I won't venture onto his turf here.

Akram's achievement, though, cannot be reduced to a set of figures. For instance, what figure, what statistic, can ever convey a sense of those first two wickets, late in the evening of the third day?

Avishka Gunawardene is no rabbit with the bat -- on the contrary, he is if anything aggressive at the batting crease. Akram got him out by combating aggression with greater aggression -- the ball pitched off, just slightly short in length, and climbed, Akram having put in every ounce of shoulder and back into that delivery.

The lifter around off is something an opener is used to coping with -- what did Gunawardene here was the fact that as it climbed, it also darted in off the seam. The batsman, thus, suddenly found the ball coming straight at his nose, at the rate of knots, and had at his disposal no response other than to fend it off with his bat, Afridi completing a great catch at gully.

Chaminda Vaas is no rabbit with the bat -- but to the one ball he faced, 'rabbit caught in the headlights' was the image he presented. Akram's aggression was palpable, it paralysed Vaas, nailed him to the crease. The ball, on line of middle, opened him up, squared him on top of the crease and then seamed away just enough to go past the bat and inflict a compound fracture to the off stump. The shattered stump was eloquent indication of a ball that had everything -- extreme pace, superb direction, lovely late movement... it would have taken out the best in the business, that ball.

Browsing the net, I have, these last few days, had more than my fill of the deeds of Walsh, McGrath, Gillespie and Donald. And yet, this display from Akram takes seconds from none. What makes it doubly amazing is the revelation, made by Akram's wife Huma to my colleague Faisal Shariff, that Akram is a diabetic, requiring three insulin injections a day to keep going.

That handicap, and this display? There just aren't enough adjectives to do it justice.

Against an attack bereft of ideas and a side that appeared to have taken the field after liberally smearing butter on their palms and fingers, meanwhile, Ijaz Ahmad and Inzamam ul Haq batted their way into the record books. Their double hundreds -- the best scores of their respective careers -- might be devalued a touch by the way the Lankans bowled and fielded, but you need to try scoring a century against a bunch of lower division schoolboys to realise that getting runs, against any kind of attack at all, ain't as easy as it sounds.

The real plus in there, for Pakistan, was Inzamam's double ton. Though Ijaz too got a big one, he never during his tenure at the crease gave much evidence of being secure and in control. Inzamam though was a different story. A bit fidgety at the start of his innings, it wasn't till he got into his 80s that he suddenly appeared to wake up and come to terms with himself.

From that point on, he was in complete control, both of himself and the bowling -- and when Inzamam takes charge and is going good, the results are pretty awesome.

The Pakistan bench will be quite kicked by his big one -- an Inzy in form and among the runs is calculated to give that team's World Cup hopes a huge fillip. In fact, that was the real difference between the two double centurions -- Ijaz even after getting to 200 had moments of doubt (in fact, he got to his double off an edge that Lankan skipper Aravinda D'Silva missed out on at first slip), whereas once Inzamam started flowing, there was never a moment of hope for the opposing side.

The Lankan second innings was a complete shambles, with the exception of the fighting last wicket stand between Hashan Tillekeratne and Sajeewa D'Silva when, for the first time, the Pakistan bowling lineup seemed a touch fussed. The way it looked, the hat trick by Akram, which reduced Lanka, on the evening of the third day, to 9/3 in a matter of 13 deliveries, appeared to have shocked the rest of the side out of its wits.

And perhaps that is the best possible tribute for Akram the bowler -- that he can inspire paralysing awe in a lineup that includes the classy Aravinda D'Silva.

There were three teams in this tournament. Pakistan, by defeating both, ensured that they hold the title free and clear -- a performance that deserves unstinted applause.

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