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Openers make merry, spin turns the tide

The SMS Stadium presented the teams with a nice, flat track and Wasim Akram got the call right on the toss, promptly opting for first strike.

The Anwar-Afridi combination is specially dangerous in conditions where they can go onto the front foot early and hit through the line without worrying too much about lateral movement off the seam, early on. And they gave another demonstration of that style of play here, as they ripped into the bowling in the initial overs to rocket the team off to a barnstorming start.

Srinath, who appears to have learnt his lessons well, quickly throttled back and bowled slower than his norm, but Agarkar, whose bowling is marked by unalloyed aggression, failed to emulate his senior, and ended up going for plenty (6-0-52-0 in his first spell). Kumble was brought in as early as over number eight, but Afridi had the bit well between his teeth at that stage, and swung away with a vengeance to blast the normally accurate leggie for 5 overs in his first over.

Kumble did have his revenge in his second over, thanks to a very clever piece of bowling. In a bid to change the angle, the leggie went round the wicket to Afridi, who noticeably chafed at the new angle, which meant he couldn't make the room he needed for a free swing of the arms. Impatient of restriction, Afridi did a little skip down the pitch and attempted to go inside out, but failed to get under the ball and only managed to loft high, and down the throat of mid off.

The first wicket partnership yielded 75, the second wicket pairing of Anwar and Ijaz then went on to realise a similar amount. Ijaz batted sensibly, letting the well-set Anwar do the bulk of the scoring, and Pakistan looked set to really turn on the screws when Ijaz went against the run of play. Nikhil Chopra bowled one quicker through the air, outside off, Ijaz tried to steer to the vacant third man, and only managed a faint edge which Mongia, standing right up, held well.

Inzamam ul Haq, who appears to have batted himself back into form in course of his double century against Sri Lanka in the ATC tournament, then took up the baton and batting continued to look easy as he and Anwar kept the board ticking over. However, around this time, India had begun clambering its way back into the match, thanks to some good tight spin bowling and intelligent captaincy.

The scoring pattern of the Pakistan innings (with runs per over rates in brackets) tells the story: 31/0 in 5 (6.2), 78/1 in 10 (7.8), 100/1 in 15 (6.6), 128/1 in 20 (6.4), 150/2 in 25 (6.0), 166/2 in 30 (5.53), 190/2 in 35 (5.42), 238/6 in 45 (5.28) and 278/9 in 50 (5.58).

The most notable feature of that graph is the slump between overs 20-45, when the run rate kept dipping consistently. Responsible for the phenomenon were the off spin-left arm combination of Chopra and debutante Gyanendra Pandey.

Since the latter is a new name, a quick take on how he bowls: a short run up followed by a noticeable pause in his delivery stride as the bowler gathers himself (it is almost as if he were taking aim, actually), a quick action of the bowling arm, a flattish line and noticeable turn and bounce were the highlights, coupled with an apparent ability to bowl to his field and to hold the prescribed line without flagging.

Thanks in large part to these two, the run rate was brought back to manageable limits, and this in turn put the pressure back on the batting lineup. You would think a team going at 6 an over at the halfway mark for the loss of just two wickets wouldn't feel pressure -- but once you get a blitzkreig start, the batsmen following set their sights on a huge score, and tend to fidget when the runs aren't flowing.

Azhar got his thinking right at this point, keeping his quicks well away from the firing line and concentrating on rotating the slow bowlers. The use of Rahul Dravid was very well conceived -- Dravid bowls flat, quick off spin and manages to keep the line wicket to wicket, and his introduction was a very good move by the Indian captain.

Dravid's brief was to keep the runs down and continue the good work of the regular spinners -- the wicket of Anwar, for 95, was by way of a bonus. While bowling, Dravid appears to think like a batsman -- thus, for the left-hander, he consistently went round the wicket and angled in to off, denying room. He then sent one quicker, flatter, and a touch wide of off, Anwar slashed, and the edge was held by Mongia to end a very fluent, attractive innings by the prolific Pakistan opener.

The very next over had Kumble take out Yousuf Youhanna. Kumble, after his first couple of overs, had changed his tack, going noticeably slower, tossing it up more and getting the loop into play. One such delivery, on a very full length, beat Youhanna in the air, the batsman playing over the ball as he tried to play round his pads to the leg side, and was bowled.

Kumble then produced two quick strikes in the 45th over, first taking out Inzamam in a fashion identical to the Youhanna dismissal, and then producing a quicker one around line of off that Akram went for, the huge swing of the bat only managing to put the ball into deep midwicket-s lap.

Agarkar's re-introduction to the bowling crease in the 47th didn't make much sense, though -- at a time when the Pak batsmen were guaranteed to go for everything, his style of bowling was guaranteed to get creamed, and 16 runs in the 47th resulted. Azhar did have other options -- besides Dravid, there was Srinath, who had bowled tight even during the Anwar-Afridi mayhem, and Ganguly (whose slower pace and ability to keep within the wickets was an ideal prescription for the conditions) remained untried.

Srinath bowled the 48th, and a clever piece of bowling did for Moin Khan, as the bowler went wide, angled one in and held it back. Moin, looking to swing it over midwicket, hit too early and lost his middle, to end yet another good cameo.

In the 49th, Agarkar finally got the yorker going to upset Azhar Mahmood's timber -- the batsman again looking to hit across the line -- and Srinath in the final over again held one back for Razzack, flailing at it, to mishit the ball, which flailed off the outer edge to deep backward point.

278, the total Pakistan finally finished with, was the highest on this ground. And it could well have been higher, but for the Indian spinners. One statistic is revealing: The three regular spinners and one part-timer, in a total of 34 overs, gave away 155 runs, while the two quicks (Agarkar being the main culprit) gave away 112 off just 16. The rate of run-scoring, as reflected in the number of deliveries each successive 50 took, underlines this aspect: Pakistan got to its first 50 in 46, the second in 49, the third in 57, the fourth in 77, the fifth again in 57.

Pandey's impressive debut, the use of the Dravid option, Kumble's thoughtful bowling in his second spell (4-0-13-3, as opposed to his first spell of 6-0-40-1), and fielding that, while not rising to the spectacular, was safe and sure were the highlights for India. But the bottomline, at the halfway stage, was that Pakistan had runs in plenty up there -- for India to get them was going to be iffy, needing at least three batsmen to play out of their skin.

The Indian innings -- Collapso cricket

Scoreboard