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Pak go one up in Wills Challenge

Prem Panicker

The key to the first game of the three-match Wills Challenge was always going to be the pitch. Keep in mind that since January 1992, the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad, Sind, hasn't seen a single fixture, either domestic or international, being played on it. Given that, the question of what exactly the pitch would do was -- despite all the car keys and suchlike paraphernalia that experts employ while doing their pre-match pitch reports -- a matter of guesswork.

On the surface the pitch looked flat and hard, the kind that makes a batsman smile while a bowler wonders if he can get away by clutching at his calf and pleading a sudden hamstring strain. But Sachin Tendulkar's reading came closest to the mark when he decided to bat first on winning the toss. Asked why, he responded: "Because I think the wicket will keep low and take spin later on in the day."

But the trick to batting first is that the side doing so has to get enough runs on the board for their bowlers, in their turn, to exploit the wearing track when it is the opposition's turn to bat -- and this was what India failed to do, thanks to the loss of the first two wickets for 3 runs, and the last 6 for 4 runs.

In a word, bad batting cost India the game -- and this is how it all happened.

The return of Waqar Younis to the Pakistan lineup provided the extra edge of pace that the attack had lacked in recent outings (though I must confess to some surprise that the selectors picked Azhar Mahmood over Shahid Nazir as the third seamer). Fresh from his English county stint in course of which he helped Glamorgan win the championship, Waqar bowled his first spell flat out, and two superlative deliveries put India on the back foot by taking out the two openers almost before the spectators had settled into their seats.

The first ball was a venomous lifter bowled at crackling pace, on middle and leg, that beat Saurav Ganguly (0 off 5) for both pace and bounce. The batsman ended up fending it off, for Hasan Raza at square leg to take a simple catch.

And the second was a classic inswinging yorker to Sachin Tendulkar (2 off 11) and the Indian captain, like his fellow opener, seemed surprised by the extra pace, getting his bat down too late to keep the delivery out of his stumps. India at that stage were 3/2, and already in deep trouble.

Robin Singh, playing more sedately than is his norm, and Mohammad Azharuddin, looking as always in fine touch, steadied things somewhat with a 58 run partnership for the third wicket but just when it looked like India was on the verge of a turnaround, a rather ill-judged attempt to sweep at Saqlain Mushtaq saw Robin (20 off 48 with one four) being bowled round his legs, India at that stage being 61/3.

Azharuddin had been let off by Moin Khan in the 17th over, when he outer edged Azhar Mahmood's leg cutter and the keeper saw the chance pop out of his glove. Barring that blemish, however, the former India captain was batting with great circumspection and seemed set for another big innings, when a lapse of concentration saw him attempt to swing a ball from Afridi to leg -- the ball was not short enough for the stroke, and Azhar (31 off 67 with three fours) ended up inner edging onto the stumps. India at that stage were 77/4 in the 23rd over.

A calm, sensible partnership of 89 runs between Ajay Jadeja and Rahul Dravid again steadied the innings, in the face of very steady bowling and tight ground fielding by Pakistan. And the slow run-rate has to be viewed, I would think, in context of the increasingly two-faced nature of the track, which made free strokeplay next to impossible.

However, nothing in either the ground or the bowling could quite explain the madness at the end -- the only word for it is sheer thoughtlessness. By this stage -- India was 150/4 in 44 overs -- it was apparent that a score around the 190, 200 mark would be a very difficult target on this wicket, more so as India too were playing two spinners. 35 runs off the last six overs is gettable -- and losing 6 wickets off 14 deliveries for just four runs was rank thoughtlessness.

The fun started in the 47th over, when Jadeja (41 off 77 with three fours) tried to make room to hit Aqib Javed through the off side, and played all over the ball to be bowled.

In the next over, Saba Karim (0 off 2) added one more to his recent run of failures when he swept half-heartedly at Saqlain Mushtaq for Ijaz Ahmed, positioned at short fine leg for just that shot, took a simple catch to have India 167/6. A ball later, Rajesh Chauhan did an action replay of the previous dismissal to go to the same combination of bowler and fielder, off the same ill-judged stroke, and give Saqlain two wickets off two balls to end the over.

Over number 49 won, for Aqib Javed, the man of the match award -- and a deserving one it was, too, for in it, he scythed away the Indian tail with a controlled exhibition of reverse swinging yorkers. Rahul Dravid (50 off 81 with two fours) contributed to his own dismissal when he backed away and tried to hit through the off side -- a batsman of his class would have been better off playing off the pads through the relatively vacant onside -- to be bowled.

Off the very next ball, Nilesh Kulkarni played all over another yorker -- same result. Debashish Mohanty sensibly pushed the single, but off the next ball, Abey Kuruvilla again came up with an action replay of earlier dismissals, his bat swinging all over another yorker to give Javed his 4th wicket, and third in the over, to end the Indian innings in 49 overs, for 170 runs -- a total that was a good 25, 30 runs short of a fighting total.

For Pakistan, Younis (7-1-21-2) bowled a brilliant opening spell in which he prised out both openers, but when he came back for the second spell, the ace quick looked distinctly stiff and out of sorts -- understandable perhaps, given that he has just got home after a long stint in England. Javed was brilliant -- 8 overs of sheer economy for 29 runs, with four wickets to show for his ability, late in the innings, to bowl the controlled inswinging yorker. Azhar Mahmood was a shade wayward, while Afridi did his bit with a spell of 1/38 in his ten and Ijaz Ahmed, called on to make up for Younis' fatigue, bowled six steady overs for 25 runs. But the real class act was Saqlain Mushtaq -- a spell of 6-3-8-1 to start with, bowling before the field restrictions were taken off, and final figures of 9-3-13-3, are testimony to the tremendous abilities this young lad has.

One factor that needs to be borne in mind when looking at the bowling performances is that unlike in Canada, the games here are being played with the white ball -- as a result, seam movement is a shade less than with the red ball, thanks to the fact that the seam on the white ball is less pronounced, but at the same time, the white ball tends to move around in the air a bit more.

For Tendulkar and the Indian side, the statistics of the Pakistan batting card will probably make for interesting reading later tonight, when they settle down to a post-match analysis. The relevant figures are simple -- Pakistan 70/0 in 12 overs. And 171/5 in 44.3 overs. In other words, the remaining 100 runs took the side as many as 32.3 overs and, throughout, batting looked an uphill task.

It is these figures that really underline the failure of the Indian batsmen, in their turn, to put up a total the bowlers could really fight with. For Tendulkar -- who, to his credit, attacked with two slips in the beginning and even later, kept a slip almost throughout the innings and, at the end when Nilesh Kulkarni produced a superb spell, he had as many as four fielders around the bat. But the low score meant that each time the batsman risked his wicket with a full blooded stroke, or got a lucky edge through the infield, that meant that many runs knocked off the target.

You need runs to bowl against -- and India didn't have enough runs. Simple.

Saeed Anwar, perhaps feeling that as captain he couldn't just go out there and slog, played rather more calmly than his norm, but still coasted along at 30 off 29 balls with four fours and one six thanks

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