Poetic justice

Written by HW SquadStats

Wednesday, 12 December 2007

After ambling along towards another dullish draw following an infuriatingly delayed declaration by Kumble, a sudden dramatic twist towards the end gave India a shot at victory, before bad light intervened play and left those watching with a sense of what-could-have-been.

Needing 373 to win in about half a day, Pakistan found themself 7 down on a bizzare pitch with 13 overs to bat out before bad light provided for what was, possibly, the most appropriate and deserving result.

The Indian batsmen once again put up a convincing display, giving the general impression that there are plenty of riches to choose from when they go down to Australia. Yuvraj's innings is significant in that it reaffirms the ability of the man to turn the tide, change the run of play. This is something that will come very handy in Australia because Australia usually operate by getting their opposition down, and keeping them down. Their generally methodology is to build a wall of pressure around the opposition and choke them. There are going to be numerous situations where India are under the gun and will need someone to break the siege.

Ganguly's form has been excellent and he barely looked in trouble through both, the 239 in the first innings and the 91 in the second. But the flood of runs need to be taken with more than just a pinch of salt because they have come on wickets that have held little or no demons. India as team do not necessarily have a habit of carrying forward their form from one series into another, so there may not be anything to carry forward from this into the Australian series except a general feel-good factor.

Despite the few occasions where they have looked unable to break through the Pakistani batting, and the general tendency to shift towards the safer, more defensive options, India have looked the stronger side and few will grudge them the series win. Pakistan have at best looked capable of keeping India away from winning, but have never really looked capable of pushing for a win themselves. The chief reason for this was the inability to get 20 Indian wickets, or even look close to doing so. The injuries and the resulting absenteeism hurt, but not more than the general lack of penetration shown by those present.

The strong batting performances helped keep defeat at bay. Misbah's excellent efforts down the order (133*) with help from Younis Khan (80) and Kamran Akmal (65) and most importantly, the cohesiveness of these innings helped Pakistan get to 537, before things fell apart in the second innings and some almost-genuine-seam-up bowling from Kumble (5 for 60) reduced them to 162 for 7.

Predictably, and deservedly, there will be knives looking to get a piece of Kumble for an inexplicably delayed decision to declare which almost certainly cost India the match. The negativity, seen now for the second time following Dravid's decision to not enforce the follow on in the last test against England earlier this year, doesn't necessarily augur well for the Australian tour, given that wins against Australia come only through 'proactive' cricket. At any rate, perhaps one shouldnt read too deeply into this, or the events and occurences of this series in general. Australia will be a completely different playing field, literally and figuratively.

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