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DEAR REDIFF

Pak pull one back in Sahara Cup

Prem Panicker

Funnily enough, it was after the series had been won and lost that the Sahara Cup ended up producing an ODI played on more typical lines - that is to say, dominated by the bat. And despite the lack of competitive interest given India's 4-0 lead going into the final game, the fifth clash between the two teams had plenty by way of points of interest.

The game was played on the first pitch - the one on which games one and two were played. If you recall, they proved to be low scoring games dominated by seam bowlers - but between then and now, it had been watered and rolled regularly, and given bright sunshine these last couple of days, turned out to be a true-blue beauty of a batting track, with just the odd ball keeping fractionally low.

Pakistan, going into the game, made two changes - resting Saeed Anwar for a groin injury and replacing him with Inzamam ul Haq, and bringing Hasan Raza into the side at the expense of Mohammad Akram. India, for its part, stayed with the team that played the fourth one dayer, going with the extra batsman in Vinod Kambli at the expense of the extra bowler, Nilesh Kulkarni.

Ramiz Raja did his team a favour, winning the toss and promptly opting for first use of the ball - for whatever life there was going to be on this track would be available only in the early part of the match, thanks to whatever dew had fallen on it in the early hours of the morning.

And to their credit, Pakistan's opening bowlers - Aqib Javed, in particular, whose first five overs contained three maidens - bowled superbly, using length and line and letting the pitch do the rest of their work for them. And with Tendulkar, in the beginning of his innings, looking a shade below his best touch, the Indian innings got off to a slow start before the momentum picked up with a sudden blitz that produced three spanking fours in the 10th over, off Tendulkar's bat.

At the other end, Ganguly just carried on where he had left off the previous day, batting with authority and, in this innings, looking increasingly comfortable on the leg side as well - in fact, his first four was an Azhar-like flick off the pads through midwicket.

With both batsmen going along easily, Ramiz for once brought Saqlain on early, in the 11th over, but by then both batsmen were well set, and stroking easily. The first wicket partnership, thus, produced 98 runs and, equally to the point, Tendulkar (51 off 64 with four fours and a six) batted himself back into form before becoming the first - in fact, only - batsman in this series to be adjudged LBW, when Azhar Mahmood beat his attempted off glide with a ball on off on good length that straightened and thudded into his back pad, India 98/1.

Vinod Kambli was sent in at first drop - a good move. Given that the series was already wrapped up, Kambli - who last turned out for India in the Independence Cup - was thus given time out in the middle to get some match practise. Early on in his career, in response to comparisons with his old schoolmate Sachin Tendulkar, he said, "Well, Sachin used the elevator, I used the stairs, that is the only difference." I wonder - does Kambli sometimes think he is on one of those stair-climbing machines, where no matter how fast you climb, you stay in the same place? I mean, not too many players can claim to have been dropped after scoring a good 50-plus in their last game. And when he did get back into the side, and finally got a bat out there, he lasted just eight deliveries, and scored just one run, before a perfectly legitimate square cut off Azhar Mahmood, hit with good timing and authority, saw Saqlain Mushtaq at point fling himself way to his right to take a blinder, the kind of catch that sticks to your hand maybe once in ten tries. There was a rueful smile on Kambli's face as he walked back - a lesser guy would perhaps have cussed. India 102/2.

Mohammad Azharuddin (50 off 65 with six fours) wiped away the aberration of the previous day to come up with his fourth big innings of the series. And with Ganguly, proved that the key to building good totals is for batsmen to collaborate in long partnerships, work the ball around, take singles, rotate the strike, and go for the big ones only when the ball is in the slot. In the event, the pair added 104 before Azharuddin got himself run out in a fashion rather shocking for one of his experience. For one thing, I couldn't figure out why, instead of running in a straight line to the non-striker's end from a push to square leg, Azhar swung wide, giving himself a good four, five extra yards to cover. And even then he would have been comfortably home had he done what they teach you to do in your first cricketing lesson - to wit, ground the bat ahead of you and run it into the crease. Here, Azhar held the bat like a rifle at half port, and actually sauntered into the crease. The action replay in fact showed that his foot was well over the line, but in the air, when the bails came off - rather silly stuff from a man of his enormous experience, and indicative perhaps of a momentary lapse in concentration. India 206/3.

Saurav Ganguly meanwhile was going merrily on - two huge sixes off Shahid Afridi, both over mid on, indicative of his growing ease on the leg side. In the process, he also became the highest scorer in the Sahara Cup annals - and looked good to be the first centurion before a lofted extra cover drive off Saqlain ended in the hands of the fielder on the line, Ganguly gone for 96 off 136 with five fours and two sixes. What was interesting about his innings - which was terminated in the 42nd over - was that again, he displayed an ability to put his head down and bat on and on - earlier, his problem was a lapse of concentration that saw him throw away his wicket just when he looked to have the measure of the bowling. India 214/4.

By then, India was well into the slog overs and Robin came out for a quick 9 off seven before playing too early at a ball from Javed that was well held back, the bowler taking the return catch to reduce India to 237/5.

Dravid came in at the unaccustomed position of number seven, got four off four balls faced, and at the other end, Jadeja played another crisp unbeaten cameo of 23 off 21 deliveries with two fours, and India went in looking good at 250/5 in 50 overs.

For Pakistan, the star bowlers were Javed (10-3-40-1) and Azhar Mahmood (very accurate on the day, to return figures of 10-1-27-2). Saqlain for once got stick to the tune of 52 in his ten overs, for the one wicket, while Afridi went for 48 off his nine thanks largely to Ganguly's two sixes.

Pakistan's ground fielding, which had let the side down rather badly the previous day, was on par here. Interestingly, though, both Sachin Tendulkar (on 27) and Azharuddin (not yet in double figures) got lives - the former, when he pushed a ball from Mahmood straight to mid on, for Ramiz Raja to get both hands to it and let it pop out again, the latter when he edged Shahid Nazir for Inzamam, at second slip, to lunge to his right but fail to clasp his fingers around the ball. Both then went on to make fifties, and underlined that catching continues to be a problem area for this Pakistan side.

With Anwar absent from the lineup, India could well have considered that it had the better chance to win, though the track by then had settled down into a real beauty of a batting track - ironically, the first one we've had in the series thus far. More so as Pakistan had been docked two overs for overstepping their allotted time.

But as Boycott would say, "It's a funny old game, cricket" - one day, you fling your bat around and the first time bat and ball connects, there is a fielder placed just right to take the chance. Another day, you do precisely the same thing and the spectator in tier six of the gallery is ducking for cover.

Today, Anwar and Ijaz could do no wrong. Hitting with enormous power and a total, almost contemptuous disregard for length or line or direction, both batsmen chanced their arm, swung and missed at quite a few, but hit enough in the middle to author a stunning start that saw the 100 of Pakistan coming up in just 65 balls, with 4 sixes and 14 fours. Reminded you, that effort, of what the bystander said after watching the Charge of the Light Brigade - "It's magnificient, but it isn't war!"

It was not that either Kuruvilla or Mohanty bowled badly - it was just that Afridi and Ijaz came out swinging and, on the day, connected with stunning regularity. And the most astonishing aspect was the batting of Ijaz - normally a calm accumulator, today he outscored Afridi, to race to his 50 off just 29 balls with two sixes and seven fours.

Pakistan again looked to be trying to do too much too soon - I mean, such blistering batsmanship is great fun to watch, but rarely lasts for a substantial number of overs - and here again, the wicket fell due to the "one hit too many" syndrome - and perhaps predictably, Saurav Ganguly was the one to do the damage in his very first over.

Seeing that his medium pacers were disappearing to every corner of the ground, Sachin brought on Ganguly as early as the 12th over and the bowler held one back a bit to induce Afridi (39 off 30 with five fours and two sixes) into playing an onside heave too early, holing out to Tendulkar at mid on. Pakistan 109/1.

And in the very next over, Harvinder - who over these last two days has looked a vastly improved bowler - made one stand up, for Ijaz (60 off 42 with nine fours and two sixes) to mistime an attempted heave over midwicket, Tendulkar at mid on again taking a well-judged catch on the run, snagging it like a baseball outfielder. Pak 109/2.

An over later, Ganguly produced a lovely little inswinger to go through Ramiz Raja's rather airy drive and peg back off stump, the Pak captain lasting all of one ball and reducing Pak to 111/3.

And a few runs later, Harvinder bowled a lovely leg cutter that went through Salim Malik (8 off 11 with one four), clipping the outer edge of the bat on its way into Karim's gloves, and Pak has slumped to 127/4, raising nightmarish visions of the batting collapses that have caused its defeats in earlier outings in this tournament, from potentially winning situations.

If the threat was averted and Pakistan coasted home to a comfortable win, credit goes to Inzamam ul Haq, returning to the side after his suspension, and the 15 year old Hasan Raza. In the third game, Raza had played the ugliest of hoiks to get out for a duck - here, he started off with as stylish a cover drive as you ever want to see, and batted on with calm good sense and a technique that holds out very good promise for the future. There is not as much strength in the teenager's shoulders and arms as one would like to see, yet - but of his technique against the seaming ball, there can be little if any doubt after this innings. He scored 41 off 84 with three fours - and rather sadly, fell to perhaps the only glaring umpiring error of the series, when Mohanty brought one sharply back to go through the batsman, clipping the pad on the way to the keeper. The umpire, perhaps going by the sound, adjudged the batsman caught behind, but by then, the youngster had added 113 off 150 deliveries with Inzamam, and put Pakistan a couple of hits away from victory. 240/5.

When you consider that Pakistan were 99/0 in 10 overs and got to 251 in the last ball of the 42nd over - taking 31.5 overs to add 151 runs - the value of that first blinding assault which produced 109 off 70 deliveries becomes obvious. Because that not only reduced the target to manageable proportions, but also ensured that the latter batsmen were never under pressure from a steep asking rate - the Raza-Inzamam partnership, thus, could bat out the overs with calm assurance, not worrying over much when they failed to get more than one or two runs in some overs.

And equally important was the contribution of Inzamam - in earlier games, we had discussed his habit of walking across to his off stump. Here, he cut it out, went back to a more classical shuffle, and stroked with authority and lovely touch to go out unbeaten on 71 off 86 with eight fours - a real match winning effort, that.

In the event, Pakistan went through in the last ball of the 42nd over, winning with five wickets, and 6 overs, in hand - a comfortable win, which should do the team much good in context of the three-game series to follow in Pakistan later this month.

For India, Ganguly again starred with the ball, his analysis of 9-1-33-2 coupled with the much improved Harvinder's 8-0-33-2 pegging Pakistan back after a lightning start. Kuruvilla (9.5-0-80-0) and Mohanty (9-1-66-1), after revelling in ideal bowling conditions, suddenly found the other side of the cricketing coin staring them in the face when the Ijaz-Afridi blitz gave them figures straight out of a bowler's nightmare. Mohanty in fact was totally ruined in his first spell, before returning to bowl with control and accuracy (he even produced a maiden in the second spell). Robin went for 15 off 4, and Jadeja, bowling after quite a while, went for 13 off just two.

The most interesting bowling statistic, to my mind, is that there have been an incredible 131 wides in the five games of this tournament - and for the life of me, I saw nothing in the conditions to explain that. I mean, you could understand if the ball, after pitching, seamed way wide of the crease - but why would the bowler bowl a line about three feet wide of the stumps to start with? Perplexes me, that.

Saurav Ganguly got the man of the match - his fourth on the run - for his 96 runs and good bowling performance. But if we define man of the match to mean the guy who actually made the difference between victory and defeat, then to my mind, Ijaz deserved it. With Anwar absent and Afridi unpredictable, Pakistan could so easily have been bogged down in the very beginning - if the innings got off to the kind of start that even four rapid wickets going down couldn't negate, then it owed to Ijaz, who opened the floodgates in the second innings and, by the time he got out, ensured that the remaining batsmen could coast to the target without ever hitting another boundary, if they were so inclined.

Ganguly, however, also got the man of the series award, and that is a verdict no one will complain about - he won one game solo, with a five-wicket haul, played a major role in two other wins, and even in a losing cause in the fifth game, was the star performer with both bat and ball.

In passing, just a thought - ain't it funny how fortunes change? Two months ago, Rahul Dravid was the boy wonder, Ganguly the talented but maverick player without the consistency and application required to translate ability into results. Today, Dravid is the batsman they are pushing lower and lower down the order - while Ganguly walks off with four individual awards.

Cricket is like that, I guess... one day a hero, the next day a bum...

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