Anti-climax?

Written by HW SquadStats

Friday, 16 November 2007

In a series which has almost been anti-climatic in its one-sided nature, two points stand out - India's clinical, all-round team effort, and Tendulkar's return to his free-flowing ways of old.

(Usually) the difference between a winning team and one that isn't doing so well is that the former has significant individual efforts acting as the extra mile, the extra burst of energy on the platform laid by the all-round efforts of the rest of the team, whereas with the latter, the individual effort turns out to be the lone warrior, the only player offering a fight when the rest are fumbling around him. Yousuf (99 off 104 balls) got a fair bit of support from Younis Khan (68 off 89 balls) and Misbah-Ul-Haq (40 off 39), but none of them were of the extraordinary, scintillating, match-winning brilliance that is needed when your team is 2-1 down and fighting to save the series.

The impact of this regular unidimensional performance has been enhanced by the fact that the Indian batsmen have been doing quite the opposite. Once again, four out of the six top order batsmen (Tendulkar 97, Sehwag 43, Yuvraj 53*, Dhoni 45*) scored much more than the team batting average of 32, with Dhoni and Yuvraj remaining unbeaten. Tendulkar's uninhibted strokeplay, and a throwback to his prime days of glory when he would bat at a plane which was beyond the nature of the pitch, opposition and the scoreboard meant that the problems India were having at the other end with Ganguly and Gambhir falling quickly were camouflaged, and the middle order batsmen got a good start to feed off nevertheless.

Another area that has been hurting Pakistan through the series is bowler nos. 4 and 5 - Abdul Rehman and Shahid Afridi. In their games against South Africa, these were the bowlers who were the hidden lynchpins of the Pakistan attack, who ensured that even when South Africa got off to a great start they ran in straight into the webs weaved by the spin twins, with nowhere to go and the run-rate reduced to a trickle. This middle-over swamp has been overcome by the Indians, with Afridi once again going for 6.7 rpo in his 10 overs without a wicket (compared to his routine economy rate of 4.5 against the South Africans), while Rehman has been milked to his way out of the side. So, while the opening bowlers haven't done any better than they did against South Africa, the bowlers in the middle overs have actually done worse.

This has been India's first home ODI series win against Pakistan in 24 years. This piece of statistic maybe irrelevant, given that there has hardly been much ODI cricket played between these two sides in India in the said period, but there is no denying that it is a win that is richly deserved, and one that will stand in good stead for the hosts when the Test matches come along.

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