NEWS
STAT SHEET
DIARY
HOT LINKS
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
BOOKS & THINGS
PEOPLE
DEAR REDIFF

Where do you reside? USA UK UAE Singapore Hong kong Australia Canada North America South America Europe Africa Bahrain Kuwait Qatar Philippines Indonesia Asia New Zealand

Kiwis out of Siyaram Cup

Prem Panicker

Pakistan won, New Zealand lost and sponsors Siyaram's smiled gleefully - that would sum up the second league game of the ongoing Siyaram's Cup unofficial ODI triangular being played at the Lal Bahadur Stadium, Hyderabad.

With New Zealand going down to its second straight defeat in two games, the organisers now face the happy prospect of being able to stage two India-Pakistan encounters - always a huge draw anywhere in the sub-continent - on Saturday and Monday.

At this point, India and Pakistan both have a win each, and irrespective of which side wins Saturday's encounter, they will meet again on Monday in the final - which should give the box office and through it, the beneficiaries, something to cheer about.

Today's game between the Kiwis and Pakistan followed a pretty predictable path - except that on a pitch different from the one used for yesterday's game, Rameez Raja rather surprisingly opted to bat first on winning the toss. Given that the wicket was not only hard with a hint of grass on it but had also been watered the previous evening, chances were that there would be bounce and movement in the early overs - and Saeed Anwar, Shahid Afridi and Raja himself found batting on it anything but a pleasure as Pakistan slid quickly to 53/3, both openers falling to the impressive Shane O'Connor.

Pakistan looked to be in even deeper trouble when Inzamam ul Haq, batting with total freedom from the moment he took guard, retired with stomach cramps with the score at 87/3, and shortly thereafter, Adam Parore brought off a superb stumping off a legside take to get rid of Salim Malik with the Pak team score at 107/4. One point in passing - the stumping was indubitably brilliant, as Parore standing right up had to take it way to his left, and bring it back in a flash to flick the bails off before the batsman, who had overreached on a front foot flick, could ground his foot again. But given the fact that the ball was by ODI standards wide of leg stump, the decision did seem a bit unfair on the batsman.

Moin Khan and rising youngster Mohammad Wasim then began the painful process of recovery, playing very straight and relying mostly on singles against some tight bowling and fielding from the Kiwis. Wasim, as he always does at the crease, looked very classy and cultured - if there is any reservations, it perhaps lies in the fact that he never appears to be the kind of batsman who can dominate the bowling. The fall of his wicket, off a faint edge to young spinner Daniel Vettori taken well by Parore behind the stumps, and the quick entry and exit of Mohammad Hussain, presumably sent in to try and hit a few lusty blows, marked the real turning point of the game - for the fall of the sixth wicket, with the score at 182, brought a recovered Inzamam back to the wicket.

Followed the most exciting phase of the innings as Inzamam (79 off 66 with ten fours and one six) and Moin (108 not out with 11 fours and two sixes) turned it on in styles both contrasting and complimentary. Inzy is all languid elegance, his occasional bludgeoning pulls mere punctuation marks in an innings characterised by lazy looking drives that pierced the field with pinpoint precision. Moin, for his part, is the archtypical middle order ODI batsman - very busy, bustling, forever looking to upset the rhythm of the bowler by stepping away or across the stumps.

Under this blitz, the till then competent New Zealand bowling and fielding wilted visibly - it was almost as if Stephen Fleming and company just gave it up as a bad job, and concentrated on weathering out the storm. Which, of course, did finally blow over - but not before propelling Pakistan to a comfortable 306/7 - a total few would have taken bets on at the halfway stage of the innings.

The start of the New Zealand innings was, if anything, less promising than that of Pakistan earlier - the pacy young Azhar Mahmood firing out Pocock, Young and Parore in rapid succession to have the batting side way behind the eight ball at 5/3. And when Matthew Horne, who had come off with honours against India a day earlier, was prised out by Aaqib Jaaved to reduce the Kiwis to 40/4, it looked like the spectators (just about enough, incidentally, to fill the stadium to one third of its capacity) would be able to beat the evening traffic on their way home.

Followed, first, a recovery and then a superb charge for the target, anchored by that old warhorse Mark Greatbatch. Coming in at number five, Greatbatch (102/98 with 11 fours and three sixes) batted with such refreshing freedom that the less experienced McMillan (82 off 61 with 7 fours and 5 sixes) was inspired sufficiently to shed his nerves and open out in a savage assault on an admittedly weak Pakistan bowling lineup.

Pakistan's main problem during this phase of the innings was the fact that neither Mushtaq Ahmed nor Saqlain Mushtaq were available to be called on. And neither Arshad Khan nor Mohammad Hussain were anywhere near the class of the two Pak frontline spinners - which meant that the Kiwi batsmen had the ideal opportunity to run riot.

Just when the Kiwis appeared to have got right back into the game, however, McMillan's attempt to go for six number six off Mohammad Hussain ended up in Aaquib Jaaved's hands, with the score on 199. And the departure of Mark Greatbatch at 233 and skipper Stephen Fleming, coming in ridiculously low at number 7, a run later pretty much shut them out of the game.

To the credit of the Kiwi tail, though, the last three wickets added 56 in considerably over even time, thanks mainly to a breezy 26 off 22 balls from Daniel Vettori. The young spinner may not have done much in either of the games he appeared in here to justify the hype naming him a rising star, but with the bat he shows to considerable advantage. Inexperience, however, won out in the end with the Kiwi tail falling to big hits just when a situation had been reached where careful accumulation of singles would have done the trick for them.

In the event, Pakistan bundled their opponents out for 290 off the last ball of the 48th over - a defeat for the Kiwis by 16 runs, with 12 balls remaining.

A fighting performance from Fleming's team, and deserving of the ovation they got from the spectators.

So now all concerned can get down to the business of watching the sub-continent's favourite sporting rivalry - India versus Pakistan, at cricket. On Saturday for starters, then again in the final on Monday.