Tale of two teams

Been wanting to blog about this for a while. The Indo-Pak one day cricket series currently on in Pakistan has been an awesome treat to watch.

At Peshawar, India started off with an unfortunate way of losing a match. Paskistan having won the toss put India in and we made what seemed like a mammoth total of 328. With the way India was cruising at 225/2 in the 34th over, with wonderful knocks from out-of-form Tendulkar and raised-up-the-order Dhoni, at this point it was like India was looking at nothing short of 350. But some good work from Pak bowlers saw us short by 20 odd runs. Anyways it still looked like a mammoth total for Pak to chase.

Pakistan managed a pretty professional chase to reach 201/1 in only the 30th over. What seemed like a dead match came back alive with Dravid taking a simple catch at Point off Kartik. The wicket turned tables, Pak came down to 265/5 and then to 311/7. During this fall was an important wicket of Inzamam – given out for obstructing the field. It was hilarious to watch a man with generous dimensions standing right ahead of the stumps well outside the crease and fiddling a ball thrown towards the stumps away using his bat. Little did he realize that he was obstructing a ball hitting the stumps to run him out!

With three overs remaining, three wickets in hand and needing 18 more runs, the match was finely poised to go either way. Nail biting and inching towards the end of the chair sat a half a lakh people at Arbab Niaz Stadium and a million more sat glued to the TV set -- unfortunately the light-meter dipped low and the umpires called off the match due to poor lights. Pak won the match by 7 runs by Duckworth Lewis method. What a pity? The most cursed way to end a to-be-thriller.


At Rawilpindi, once again Pakistan won the toss but this time it took to bat hoping to post a big score. The hope hiccupped right in the second ball in the innings when Pathan swung the ball a wee bit away from the batsman Salman Butt - edged it to the keeper for a simple catch. The biggie scorer in the previous match was gone for a duck. Tendulkar mis-fielding at short-mid-wicket and the Yousuf going for the extra run, ball hitting the non-strikers end and he was out by miles. Pakistan did a great job to each 204/5 from 68/4 but after Shahid Afridis departure, the team just managed to reach 265 all out in 49.2 overs. The Indians were happy to have restricted the home team well with some exceptional fielding performances running out 4 of those Paki batsmen. In the chase, India kept their defense and their offence just in the right manner playing the loose balls and holding back on tougher ones finished a neat job losing only three wickets with seven overs to spare. Everyone visiting the crease contributed and a pretty neat chase executed well. A good toss to lose?!


At Lahore, India winning the toss put Pakis in, India going without a single spin attack and made a mess up of fielding dropping three catches - Kaif raised late on third slip to pouch a outside edge off Afridi in the third over, Dravid dropping a regulation slip catch off Akmal in the sixth over and Gambhir flooring an important Shoib Malik’s edge at Slip, may be a little difficult but definitely a mustaveBeenTaken. It costed India lots. And all the three catches off Sreesanth, the youngster was very frustrated very understandably.

Inspite of sloppy fielding, wickets kept falling at regular intervals and runs kept coming. With an important knock from Shoib Malik and a great supporting role from Abdul Razzaq Pakistan set a competitive target of 289. In response, India struggled with the initial pace bowling, lost Gambhir and Pathan for only 12, Dravid got beaten every other ball and eventually dismissed at 84/3. By this time the pace attack had lost juice. Tendulkar having provided a strong platform missing his century by five runs was out and India was 189/4. When around 17 overs remaining, 104 runs required Kaif had a great chance to prove which he let slip away. India was 190/5. A real pressure situation. Yuvraj and Dhoni at crease, asking rate raising to 7.3 runs an over, runs not flowing, Dhoni had to pick his play. He did not want to do what he doesn’t know to do. He wanted to play his shots, take his chances, rely on his muscle power, have confidence in his strength and it did play off. Power play is where Dhoni is there. It was indeed a pleasure to watch Dhoni play the counterparts in Afridi and Razzaq. He championed the team to 2-1 up in the series. Hats off Dhoni!

The next match going on at Multan could be the decider. Will India wrap it up? This is the question. I know the match is over but I haven’t seen it yet, not even the score. I am watching it deferred live right now with fingers crossed.