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'Cornered tigers' maul India

One day India is brilliant all round, and Pakistan appears to be sleepwalking. The next day, the situation is reversed.

For the dreamers among us, here is a dilly -- think of the day the two teams manage to synchronise, and both be brilliant on the same day, now that'll be a game for the gods.

Meanwhile, today was the antithesis of the earlier league game between these two sides -- here it was Pakistan firing, with bat and ball, and India failing, with both. And going into the second half of the tournament, it has all opened up quite nicely, with Pakistan levelling with India on points and now having a much better run rate as well (oh that dreary spell of batting at the end of the earlier league game -- will we live to regret it? You bet!).

Now, we are back to a familiar situation for India to be in -- first, they HAVE to beat South Africa tomorrow, something no team has done yet at Sharjah. And then, to be sure, they have to be sure Pak loses to SA the next day.

Times like this is when the Indian fan wonders why the team has this chronic aversion to doing things the simple, easy way -- but meanwhile, over to the details of the day.

During the day off, the ground staff appears to have got busy, watering and rolling the pitch to a hardness, a sheen, that had the ball coming on quicker onto the bat. Moin, with his star bowlers Akram and Akthar (the latter only three quarters fit) back into the side, won the toss and opted to bat.

He had done that the last time too, but lost -- not because the idea was bad, but because the execution left a lot to be desired. This time round, they got the script just right.

True, as early as the 5th over, Imran Nazir, whose timing impressed even during this short stint, was done by some superb bowling by Agarkar. Having bowled at top pace till then (which for him is around the 140-142k mark), he suddenly slipped in the full length slower ball, and Nazir, completely foxed, pushed it to mid on for a simple take to have Pak 20/1 after five overs.

Afridi's heart is as big as all outdoors -- but his cricketing brain appears to be the reverse. After a slow start, he suddenly changed gears, charged Kumble and lofted him superbly for four over cover, playing inside out as Kumble went round the wicket. Fine -- but surely any bowler worth his salt would suss out that Afridi was in that frame of mind, and odds were he would come down the track again? Sure enough, he did -- all Kumble had to do was pitch a touch short, and push it through very fast, to beat the charge, for Karim, after a slight fumble, to take and stump.

Younus Khan, who at three impressed with his calm assurance and the way he kept his end going, did all the hard work and was just about beginning to open out when Joshi did him with a floater around off, drawing the batsman into the drive, turning it enough to find the outer edge for Azhar, at cover, to dive forward to take a superbly judged catch.

Look at run progression, and you get an idea of the game as it developed. Pak 20/1 in 5; 41/2 in 10, 63/2 in 15, 79/2 in 20, 108/2 in 25. Two things are immediately obvious -- Pakistan was yet again sticking to its plan of steady accumulation at the top, with the idea of making the big push at the end. And you also notice a dip between 15-20 -- which was when Robin Singh came on to bowl, and produced a superb spell of tight, intelligent bowling, sticking to line and length, not giving room, width, or pace for strokeplay. On a tangent, a puzzling aspect of Robin's career is this -- the guy's played over 100 ODIs. So how come today is only the 11th time he has actually bowled his 10 overs through, and finished his quota? Given his steadiness, you would have expected him to have bowled his 10 at the last once in four outings -- but no. Why? Theories, anyone?

Once Inzamam and Yousuf Youhanna got together, India were shunted out of the game -- and if Inzy gave it to India on a platter in the first game, then the same player clubbed them senseless today. In the middle overs, he focussed on calm accumulation, except when Kumble got the ball. Each time the leg spinner came on, the Pakistan vice captain seemed to react like a bull to a waving red rag -- down the wicket he came, and produced some of the sweetest lofted hitting you ever want to see.

But essentially, Inzamam looked to chip, nudge, check drives, and keep the board ticking through the middle phase. There was a point, with Pak just 146/3 at the 35 over mark, when you began to wonder if yet again, the side was going to give it up after a good solid platform being put in place. But no way, Jose, not this time -- Inzamam seemed out to prove a few points, and Youhanna, at the other end, seemed equally keen to just stay there and watch his partner do it.

The acceleration was brilliantly timed, and superbly executed -- from 146/3 in 35, to 273/3 at the end of 50, and during this phase, it was a masterful display of strokeplay, mixing power, passion, placement and delicacy altogether into a heady cocktail that left the bowlers punch drunk, and the crowds delirious. While Inzy's classic hitting obviously took the spotlight, I'd think Youhanna's contribution was just as significant -- when on song, he is a fine player to watch, and if he was slow at the outset, he made up for it with some stylish strokeplay towards the end to hold his end up in a partnership at well over a run a ball.

India's only hope was for a great start. Pakistan's, for a great spell from Akram and Younis with the new ball. The latter produced the goods, the former failed, and that pretty much sums up the second half.

For the average fan, memory doesn't seem to stretch more than six months back. Thus today, it is all about Akthar, and Brett Lee. But for me, an enduring sight in cricket, a sight that I've lusted after, and enjoyed, for over a decade now, is that of Younis at his best. The easy, rhythmic approach, the laser-guided accuracy, the incredible variety and those devastating inswinging/reverse swinging yorkers -- that kind of sight is to die for, if you love the real aesthetics of the game. And today, it was all on show, as Waqar produced a masterly display that, if not as pacy as his prime, made up in guile, to scythe through the Indian batting and, incidentally, put Younis within one wicket of the coveted 300 mark in ODIs.

Younis began the damage in the first over he bowled, when he had Ganguly tentative with some lovely deliveries that shackled the batsman completely, and increasingly, seemed to irk him as well. In his second over, he finished it off -- after keeping Ganguly quiet on off, he angled one in on the base of off stump, disguising the slower ball superbly, and Ganguly, who spotting the line had decided to smash on the on side, was completely deceived and ended up hitting a sharp return catch to the bowler.

Akram then got into the act, and again, in his take-out of Tendulkar, there was the sign of a master bowler at work. Tendulkar had been thumping the ball on the off and repeatedly, finding the field set for his best shots (the use of a short point for Tendulkar, by both SA and now Pakistan, is a tactic I would see more teams using, and one that Tendulkar will now need to think of how to counter). Akram after angling a few across and seaming it further away from off stump, produced one that pitched off and seamed in to middle. Tendulkar promptly shut the bat face and worked him through midwicket, for a brace. You could almost see the batsman telling himself, oh-kayyyy, if I can't make it on the off, then I'll do it on the on. Sure enough, the next ball was on the same line, angling to off, swinging in late -- only, this was the yorker, and the slower one to boot. Tendulkar, playing the angle, shaped to go through midwicket yet again, played all round it, and lost middle stump. That was a craftsman at work, and Akram's exultation showed the effort that had gone into that dismissal.

Sunil Joshi was sent in to pinch hit, but by then Younis was on song, and unstoppable. The bowler angled one across the left hander, pitching just outside off. That is the slot pinch hitters like, since they get the width to free the arms and hit through the line on the up. Only, Younis had pitched it very full, and seamed it away late -- result, Joshi could only get the edge on the drive, for Moin to hold.

Dravid and Azhar got together. And went completely static. Around this time, the Pakistan bowling and fielding looked superlative. While on the latter, the arrival in the ranks of guys like Imran Nazir, always outstanding at point, Shoaib Malik, equally effective square on the on or at midwicket and mid off/on, and Younus Khan has added teeth to the fielding, put some young legs under the Pakistan side, and with Afridi and Youhanna also lifting their fielding a few notches, Pakistan increasingly looks a good fielding side.

Dravid finally seemed to be finding his bearings, going after Razzaq in the 18th over, with a fluent straight drive and then the on drive. He was in fact just beginning to middle his drives and shots square on the off, when an eagerness to play the one shot too many -- that too the one he doesn't really have in his armoury -- did for him. Akthar pitched outside off, a bit wide, and seamed it further away. Dravid hung his bat out, attempting to guide to third man. And managed only the edge to the keeper.

Akthar didn't look as lethal as he had the previous day, and in fact went off the field, unwell, after 5 overs. The bright spot in his otherwise ordinary spell today was one delivery that scorched through at 157.2 kmph -- just 0.4 kmph outside of Jeff Thomson's record of the fastest ball of all time (all recorded time, that is). It's also almost a full k higher than the one he had produced the other day, and odds now have to be favourable for him to beat Thomson before this tournament is out.

Younis came back on, and promptly took out Azhar to his old failing, standing with feet nailed in place, slashing outside off, and edging through to the keeper. india at that point were 90/5 in the 25th over, and at this point, no only had they lost the game, they had also shot themselves in the foot in terms of run rate.

From then on, it was all clinical. Pakistan just did the basics right, kept things tight, and let the Indians collapse in a heap. Perhaps the one more significant wicket, that merits mention, is Younis taking out Jadeja, this time with a beauty. Jadeja was repeatedly guiding his leg cutters through to third man, so Younis pitched one in the same slot, only, this time he ran his fingers over the seam the other way, got it to nip back, sneak past the edge and crash into off stump.

Younis in fact had five for the game, and shared Man of the Match honours with Inzamam. A statistic jumps out and hits you in the face -- Akram, from 296 matches, has 416 wickets. Younis, from 185 matches, has 299 wickets. Akram averages 23.5, Younis, 23.3. Little to chose between the two, Younis perhaps losing out thanks to injury, and not playing as much as he should have. But consider this -- over the last decade, Pakistan has been spearheaded by two bowlers who between them have taken out 715 -- geez, count them, 715 -- wickets between them. Which explains just why Pakistan has been doing so brilliantly for such a long time.

Another statistic merits mentioning. At the end of this game, Pakistan have two points, so does India. The vital difference is, Pakistan has lifted its run rate to +0.31, while india has slipped further behind, from -0.61 to -1.37.

And that pretty much defines India's task for tomorrow. Going up against a side that is yet to lose in Sharjah, they have to win, and win big. Then, they have to hope that Pakistan lose the next day -- or at the least, win by such a narrow margin that India can sneak in on run rate.

Sure, run rates are part of tournament rules, and there is no sin against qualifying for the final on these terms. But it does make you wonder -- what is wrong with the old fashioned way of trying to win games, instead of playing the calculator keys? And if run rates were so important, what was the whole idea behind the last 30 minutes, maybe even 45, of the previous league game, when India with a virtual win to its name, produced a classic exhibition of studied defense and in the process, wasted a good 8, 10 overs before sealing the win?

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