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DEAR REDIFF

India chase, and win, in a thriller

Prem Panicker

Cricketing myths -- India cannot chase stiff targets, India fails in the chase if Sachin Tendulkar is out early, the Indian tail is prone to collapse, Saqlain Mushtaq is impossible to get away at the death, and so on and forth -- tumbled like ninepins at the National Stadium, in Karachi, as India pulled off a thriller with four wickets standing, and three balls in hand.

And at the end of it all, the crowd at Karachi has a sobering truth to reflect on. The last time India and Pakistan played at the venue, rioting caused the game to be abandoned. This time round, play was stopped four times in the first half, when Pakistan was batting, as the crowd pelted the Indian fielders with big stones. On the fourth occasion, Sachin Tendulkar -- whose patience thus far had, frankly, been exemplary -- led his team out, causing the innings to be terminated at the 47.2 over stage.

What is ironic is that when that happened, it seemed as if Pakistan -- with Inzamam and Moin Khan hitting out with a vengeance -- could well add another 25 runs or more before close. If it didn't happen, it was because of crowd trouble. And in the end, the target Pakistan put on the board proved too little in the face of a superlative Indian batting performance under intense pressure.

The yobbos in the crowd, thus, can now go home with the knowledge that their stupidity actually contributed significantly to the defeat of their home team.

Here is how it all happened.

The pitch was a nice, flat batting track, of the kind that brings a gleam to the eyes of strokeplayers. The side winning the toss was always going to bat first and look to post a big total -- on the theory that even on the flattest of batting tracks, batting first is always easier than chasing, given that the pressure of a mounting run rate falls on the side batting second.

Saeed Anwar called right, and went in with a team that read the same as the one that had, the other day, won the first game against India. India, for its part, made one change -- Rahul Dravid, whose inflamed wisdom tooth had brought with it some pain and a fever, sat this one out and Vinod Kambli got a chance to have a bat.

Given the kind of wicket it was, the best bet for the Indian medium pacers, Abey Kuruvilla and Debashish Mohanty, was to bowl within themselves, concentrating on angling the ball, from wide of the crease, into the batsmen. That is pretty much standard theory on a batting track, as the only way of cramping batsmen for room. And this is where the inexperience of the Indian attack showed -- in Toronto in favourable conditions for the bowlers, the odd loose deliveries could escape punishment as the batsmen would be always hesitant to attack. But on a batting wicket, bowling two, three deliveries wide of the stumps was asking for trouble, and the Indian opening bowlers got it in plenty, when Anwar and Afridi got off to their usual flier of a start, 32 runs coming in the first five, the score rocketing to 65/1 in 10.

What this meant was that Tendulkar had to bring in Rajesh Chauhan in the eighth over, and the move had an unexpected success when Anwar, going good at that stage, pushed a fraction early at the off spinner, to find Chauhan diving low to his left, on the follow through, to hold a superb return catch. 55/1.

Afridi meanwhile was rocketing along, swinging through the line at everything, smashing the quicker bowlers to every conceivable part of the ground. 91/1 in 13 overs and it seemed like a 300-plus score was very much on the cards.

At Hyderabad the other day, the Pakistan umpires had been fair to the point of bending over backwards in favour of the Indians. Here, third umpire Riazuddin appeared hell bent on reversing the trend. In the 14th over, Afridi danced down to Chauhan, and missed with a flailing heave. Karim gathered -- not too cleanly, to be sure, but umpires are expected to go by results, not aesthetics -- and pushed the stumps down. Afridi, scrambling back, was so far out of his ground that he did not bother to even ground his bat, preferring to keep walking in the direction of the pavilion.

Just what caused umpire Riazuddin, the third umpire, to rule the batsman not out, I couldn't figure out. What was amazing -- another word for it is apalling -- is that the incident went against cricketing convention, which holds that the third umpire cannot, repeat, cannot, rule on an on-field happening unless and until he is specifically asked for his judgement. Here, no one asked Riazuddin the time of the day. He gave it, anyway. I wonder what Ranjan Madugalle of Sri Lanka, the ICC match referee, has to say about this?

In the event, Afridi went on. And on. Reaching 72 off 56, and taking the score along to 126, before taking a huge swing at Nilesh Kulkarni, without quite getting to the pitch of the ball, to give Kuruvilla on the long on fence a simple catch.

Pakistan has, in recent outings, had a definite problem with its middle overs -- and this game was no exception. 132/2 in 20 overs is the kind of start you dream about. But from this point, the batting lost its way a bit in the face of some tight, intelligent bowling by Nilesh Kulkarni, Rajesh Chauhan, Saurav Ganguly and Robin Singh -- who bowled line and length, keeping their field in mind, to such good effect that the Pakistan batsmen managed to get only 19 runs between overs 20-25 (151/3), 14 runs between 25-30 (165/3), 23 between 30-35 (188/3) and a mere 11 between 35-40 (199/4). In other words, the overs between 20 and 40 yielded just 67 runs -- which, by any yardstick, is on this kind of track a superlative job by the fielding side.

Ijaz Ahmed, who seemed to be timing the ball pretty well, was the third to go when Nilesh Kulkarni spun a ball outside his off stump, got some bounce from his height and the batsman, cutting, failed to keep the shot down. Azharuddin at point dived to his right to take a blinder, Pakistan 148/3. Ijaz did get lucky when, at his personal score of 24, he edged Kulkarni to Karim only for umpire Salim Badar to rule against the appeal, but in the event, the decision -- which had the Indians looking rather grim -- did not do too much damage.

Saleem Ilahi, coming in to the side in place of Salim Malik, was always going to be under pressure to play to the sort of standards set by his illustrious colleague. In the event, his touch and timing continued to be way short of the optimum, and a rather laboured innings ended when he tried to loft Chauhan over the long off boundary, his feet not moving fluently enough to get to the pitch of a well flighted delivery from the off spinner and Nilesh Kulkarni, running in, took an easy catch, Pakistan 197/4.

Meanwhile, three instances of stone throwing at the fielders on the boundary line -- Jadeja, Kulkarni and Ganguly being the victims -- had caused major holdups in play. Coming into the slog, Pakistan were 199/4 in 40 and Moin Khan and Inzamam ul Haq, the latter batting with a newfound sense of responsibility ever since the fifth one-dayer at Toronto, took charge.

Superb running between wickets -- Inzamam proving surprisingly fleet of foot, actually -- and a willingness to hit hard when the ball was in the slot, meant that the score kept rocketing along, a good 53 runs coming between overs 40 and 45. In this period came yet another Riazuddin gaffe -- Moin Khan attempted to glide Chauhan, Karim gathered, appealed for a catch, then seeing Moin out of his ground lunged forward and broke the stumps. True, Karim would have made it totally safe had he first whipped the bails off rather than appeal -- but in the event, even given the delay caused by the appeal, he still broke the wicket with Moin's back foot fractionally on, rather than behind the line. Riazuddin in his wisdom again gave the decision in the batsman's favour.

Then came the fourth incident of stone throwing and this time Tendulkar, who on three earlier occasions had been pacified by match referee Ranjan Madugalle and persuaded to continue with the game, led his men out of the ground.

Two points need to be made here. One, I reckon Tendulkar was right in his action -- the last incident in fact occured when Ganguly, chasing a Moin Khan drive, was running toward the boundary, the stone came out of the stands and hit him on the body. The risk here was that he was facing the crowd, that stone could as easily have hit him on the face, causing what could have been a serious injury. As Tendulkar pointed out, the trouble was always coming from the same stand and if the security officials couldn't keep things quietened down, then there was no reason for him to risk the safety of his players.

The other point is that the disgraceful behaviour actually went against the home side. (Please note, I do not mean to imply that such behaviour is pardonable if it goes in favour of the home team -- by any yardstick, such crowd behaviour at any sporting occasion goes against the very concept of sport, and cannot be condemned too strongly. The reason I underline how the incident went against the home team is essentially in the hope that people of that ilk can, perhaps, understand that their misplaced jingoism is not only against every sporting ethic, but does not even serve the purpose they, in their misguided minds, imagine they are furthering.) For not only did the batting side lose 2.4 overs when the batsmen were on song, but India at that stage was well behind the over rate. If the game had not been interrupted four times by stone throwing -- and once, for an incredible five minutes, while Riazuddin sat and pondered slow motions replays of a run out appeal against Ilahi when it was apparent at the first glimpse of the replay that he was home safe -- India would have been docked at least three, four overs. Which means that India would have been chasing whatever total Pakistan managed in its alloted 50 overs, with at least four overs less to get them in.

In the event, Madugalle had no option but to close the Pakistan innings at 47 overs, the score then standing at 265/4, and to call for the lunch break.

India, in its turn, had to get off to a good start. In the event, the start proved to be spectacular -- Tendulkar and Ganguly rocketing the side to 46/0 in the first five overs, against the 32 achieved by the Pakistan openers. Ganguly's off driving in this phase was stunning in its effortless ease, while Tendulkar played two trademark drives, one through cover point and another through mid on, before contemptuously pulling Aqib Javed over midwicket for six.

The feared Waqar Younis went for 26 off his first five overs but the real damage was done to Aqib Javed, man of the match at Hyderabad the other day. Javed's first three overs went for 36 runs, Ganguly taking him for three fours in one over while Tendulkar took him for two fours and a six in the next.

The Pakistan quicks, like the Indians earlier, were trying too hard on a track not quite meant for aggressive fast bowling -- and like the Indians, they paid for it.

Tendulkar was out to a brilliant piece of cricket by Moin Khan. Azhar Mahmood was bowling without a slip.Tendulkar, picking the gap, had earlier in the over guided him with the open bat down to third man for a single and, getting the strike back again, repeated the stroke. Moin, anticipating, began moving to his right even before the stroke was played, then flung himself a long way further to snatch a blinder of a catch, around where in normal circumstances second slip would have been. India at that stage, 71/1 in 9.3 overs.

Vinod Kambli came in ahead of the in form Azharuddin -- perhaps because the management figured on sending him sufficiently early to allow the batsman, who hasn't had enough time out in the middle in recent months, to get his eye in. And the Pakistan bowlers aided India's cause in this period, thanks to some sort of preconceived notion that both left handers are weak to bowling aimed at their pads. In the event, both Ganguly and Kambli kept getting runs through the leg side, the bowlers overcompensated by either pitching short (to which Kambli responded with a fierce pull for four) or going outside off, when Ganguly smashed two fluent extra cover drives to the fence.

Around this time, Moin Khan erred when an Azhar Mahmood inswinger had Kambli flashing, the movement of the ball finding the edge and Moin, diving to his left, got glove to ball and grassed it.

Saqlain Mushtaq had to come in before the flow of runs could be stanched -- and the off spinner, superbly controlled as usual, bowled his first three overs for just four runs, including a maiden in the 15th over.

However, both Ganguly -- in brilliant touch -- and Kambli, authoritative and patchy in turn -- kept their heads, took singles, constantly rotated the strike and ensured that India never lost touch with the asking rate. 95/1 in 15, 118/1 in 20, 140/1 in 25 meant that over half the required had been got, with nine wickets standing, by the halfway stage of the innings.

Waqar Younis at this point came back for the second spell and Ganguly, who was batting with ominous authority, fell to the preconcieved shot. Finding that the sweeper at extra cover had been taken away to provide cover on the leg side, Ganguly appeared to decide, even before Younis delivered the ball, that he was going to back away to leg side and go inside out over extra cover. In the event, Younis, who always gets swing with the older ball, followed him, the ball starting from around off and swinging down to outside leg stump, Ganguly's stroke was cramped, and he was easily held at extra cover by Afridi. The irony here is that if Ganguly had moved into line instead of backing away, that ball was doing so much in the air that it would have been called wide down the leg side.

Ten runs after Ganguly's dismissal at 169, India lost the wicket it didn't need thanks to some rather bad cricket. Kambli, who was slow and rather hesitant at the start, had finally got his bearings, and was middling the ball with increasing authority when Azhar pushed to cover and called for the quick single. Saqlain, who in recent times has developed into a very athletic, committed fielder in the region between gully and cover, raced round, picked up and hit the stumps at the batsman's end to catch Kambli out of his ground, India losing its third wicket for 179.

What this meant was that two new batsmen found themselves at the crease at the same time, and this brought about the inevitable drop in run-scoring. From 140/1 in 25, India went to 162/2 in 30 and 191/4 in 35, the fourth wicket being that of Azharuddin when Jadeja pushed to mid on, Saeed Anwar raced to his left, picked up and threw the stumps at the non-striker's end down in a flash and Azhar, who had given his partner a start, found himself unable to recover. This was in the 35th over.

India at that stage needed 72 off 75. Robin and Jadeja were at the crease -- and what was to follow was the same tail that had folded for four runs in 14 balls in the previous game.

Things became bleaker for the tourists when Jadeja, off the last ball of the 36th over, slashed at Afridi for Ijaz to hold easily at point. India 195/5 at this stage, Karim to join Robin, and it looked to be all over.

Interestingly, though, India had throughout kept abreast of the Pakistan total. Thus, at 35, Pakistan was 188/3, India 191/4. And with Karim and Robin batting very sensibly, not panicking even as the asking rate mounted, and content to take the singles every chance they got, they got to the end of the 40th over with the board reading 209/5.

One way of reading the game at this point was to figure that India needed, with just Robin, Karim and the tail to come, 57 off 42 deliveries. The other way is to look at the fact that at the same stage, Pakistan was 199/4.

So what it all boiled down to, really, was the question of whether the Indians could hold their nerve, and not panic even when the boundaries became hard to find.

Both batsmen did the job to perfection, taking singles at every chance, running well to turn ones into twos even against a Pakistan fielding side fired up by the two run outs. The turning point, however, was over number 43, bowled by Saqlain Mushtaq. Robin Singh took two twos to start things off, then slashed through cover for four, and then produced one of his trademark short arm sweeps over midwicket, hitting with minimum backlift and enormous power, flat-batted the ball over the fence for six. That reduced the equation to 31 off 24, and the game was in balance again.

Part of the reason was a regular ploy of fielding sides that, for once, backfired badly. Whenever the white ball is used, you tend to find the fielding side asking for a change of ball towards the end, especially if they have some decent swing bowlers. And Younis is about as lethal as they come, so it seemed that it would be hugely to the advantage of Pakistan when it asked for, and got, a change of ball at the end of over number 42.

Face it, the ball had gone softer, as a ball will after being hit about for 40-odd overs. The white surface had become greenish from contact with the turf -- another regular problem when using the white ball. But it didn't seem to have deteriorated badly enough to be changed. The umpire, meanwhile, goofed when he picked, out of the box, a brand new ball to replace the old one. Anwar spotted it and protested, at which the umpires chose a slightly older ball, then rubbed it on the ground to take off a lot of the shine.

Anwar had used up too many of Younis's overs, and Aqib Javed was being hit too freely. So one over had to be bowled by someone other than Younis and Saqlain, and that lot fell to Afridi, who went for 10, to reduce the ask to 21 off 18.

Saqlain is usually devastating in the death phase with his accuracy. But here, in over number 45, he succumbed to the pressure, starting with a wide, the second ball was dabbed down to third man for a single, the third, fuller in length, swept by Karim for a four and suddenly, India had pulled it back to less than a run a ball. Ball four was another single. Ball five was a lovely looping delivery that hurried Robin ont the defensive push, no run. But again, Saqlain bowled a wide down the leg side, to let the pressure off, and in the event, not only did he give away two extra balls in that over, but the rebowled last ball was lifted over midwicket for two more, to bring the equation down to 10 off 12 balls.

Why such an elaborate description of this over? Simply because, at the post match media briefing, Anwar blamed the defeat squarely on the changed ball, saying it was too hard and handicapped his bowlers. Well, heck, whenever a ball is changed at the death, the replacement ball invariably is harder than the one used thus far -- so I was rather taken aback when Anwar, twice on the run, mentioned this as the sole factor behind Pakistan's defeat.

It is more ironic given that in the 46th over, Waqar Younis was -- with the much maligned ball -- simply brilliant. Ball one was pushed for a single. Ball two was driven by Karim to cover, no run. Ball three was a magnificient inswinging yorker, trademark Waqar, which Karim could do little beyond digging out. Ball four was another beauty -- starting around line of off, it swung in very late towards leg, pitched right on the popping crease and straightened to uproot the leg stump and India at that stage needed nine off seven, with Rajesh Chauhan at the wicket. And Chauhan, who in recent times has not done much with the bat, appeared to have set India's cause back when he pushed the last ball for a single, and retained strike with India needing 8 off six deliveries, and Saqlain Mushtaq the bowler.

The last game, Chauhan had swept a ball on leg stump from the same bowler, to be caught at short fine leg. Again, the short fine leg was placed, again, Saqlain came round the wicket and angled the ball into the leg stump -- only, this time, Chauhan danced down the track and swinging hard, took the ball on the full, first ball, to cart it over midwicket for a six. That brought the ask to two off five, ball two was turned to short fine leg -- the identical stroke that had got him in trouble last time -- but this time Robin ran even before Chauhan had connected with the shot and got home with a dive before the wicket was broken, and ball three was swept by Robin for a single to backward square to end the game.

From all this -- and again, reiterating that the detailed description of the last three overs was occasioned by Anwar's end-of-game comment -- it would appear that the ball was not the problem (remember the two wides, and the two additional runs off the rebowled ball at a crucial stage?). For once, the normally brilliant Saqlain lost his line and length under pressure, and was punished.

What jarred about Anwar's rather needless outburst at the end was that if the umpires were to be criticised, then it was India rather than Pakistan that had the better right to do so -- three glaring decisions had gone against them, two of them by the third umpire and one of those in total contravention of cricketing norms.

I would think that a sporting acknowledgement of defeat is equally -- perhaps, even more -- admirable that grace in victory.

In contrast, I thought that Saurav Ganguly -- man of the match for the fifth time in seven outings against Pakistan starting in Toronto -- was as graceful in his acceptance speech as he was earlier, in his off driving. "I lost the game for India when I got out at that stage of the innings, and Robin Singh, Saba Karim and Rajesh Chauhan won it for us. To me, these three are the real men of the match," said Ganguly.

A comment that was praiseworthy, coming from a man who had bowled with tight control in the middle overs to return figures of 10-0-39-0 (the most economical by an Indian bowler, barring perhaps Robin's 6-0-23-0) and then weighed in with a superb 89 off 96 deliveries, studded with 11 fours, when it came his turn to bat.

In the event, this is one win Tendulkar and his team will probably take some pride in. Recent editorial writings have tended to downplay the wins in Toronto on the grounds that they were attained on seaming tracks.

I am still not clear why that should devalue the results -- after all, if it seamed for inexperienced bowlers like Kuruvilla, Mohanty and Harvinder, then it seamed equally for Aqib, Mohammad Akram, Azhar Mahmood and Shahid Nazir.

But the general consensus has been that on batting tracks -- and the one at Karachi for this game was a true belter -- the inexperienced Indian attack would be taken apart, while the Pakistan attack, strengthened by the return of Younis, would demolish an Indian batting lineup too prone to panic. More so if Tendulkar goes early.

Time for a rethink, folks?

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