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Legendary Australian wicketkeeper Rodney Marsh was
credited with a statement in the 1979-80 season,
which went like this: 'First, there is bad, then
there is very bad, and lastly, there is FaisalaBAD'.
He apparently made this proclamation at the end of
a dreary Faisalabad Test in which both Australia
and Pakistan batted just once, with the bowlers of
both sides getting the hammering of their lives on
an unhelpful pitch. The great Dennis Lillee, who at
that stage was within striking distance of the
world record for the highest number of Test
wickets, was so traumatized that he vowed never to
tour Pakistan, and indeed, he didn't when the
Aussies returned in 1982-83. If he felt this way,
then one can only imagine the extent of the damage
to the confidence-levels of lesser bowlers.
One cannot help but feel that every aspiring and
established bowler in the entire sub-continent,
regardless of whether he is Indian, Pakistani or
Bangladeshi, would have wholeheartedly agreed with
Marsh after watching the slaughter of the Indian,
Pakistani and Indian bowlers on another batting
paradise in the town that was known as Lyallpur
before Partition. The sub-continent's traditional
indifference towards its own history has ensured
that people of both Pakistan and India have
forgotten that the British designed the town along
the lines of the Union Jack. Eight roads, on either
side of which houses and commercial establishments
were constructed, merged at a single point.
It has to be conceded that Shahid Afridi, Rahul
Dravid, Mahendra Dhoni and Younis Khan ended up
paying a tribute to the ingenuity of the erstwhile
rulers, even as they went about dispatching the
cricket ball into eight and more directions of the
lifeless cricket pitch at the Iqbal stadium.
The last two weeks, which witnessed the 'batathons'
at Lahore and Faisalabad, have been traumatic for
two sets of people. The first comprises the
children and teenagers of the sub-continent who
dream of emulating the Imrans, Kapils and Kumbles.
The events at Lahore and Faisalabad would have
prompted them to consider abandoning their lofty
ambitions and picking up the bat instead. That
isn't great news for the future of Test cricket in
the world's most cricket-crazy region. A team needs
to be able to take twenty wickets to win a Test,
and if it doesn't possess the resources to do so,
there is only one way a Test can go.
The other category, which would be terribly
distressed (although they won't admit it, for
mediocre people never admit their failings) is the
one that believes that a cricket-viewing audience
can be held captive by discussions on the culinary
preferences and hairstyles, among other things, of
the cricketers.
The domination of the bat over ball at Lahore and
Faisalabad left the cricketing connoisseurs - they
who appreciate a contest between bat and ball -
with no option but to seek solace in the
enlightening studio discussions moderated by Sanjay
Manjrekar, and featuring the likes of Imran Khan,
Nasser Hussain, Boycott, and Rameez Raja. The
conversations were intense, informative,
fascinating, and most importantly, based on the
game of cricket as it is played, and nothing else.
It was wonderful to hear Boycott point out that
Kumble and Harbhajan got most of their wickets when
they crowded the batsmen with close-in fielders. At
Faisalabad, they didn't have anybody around the
bat, and that could have indirectly contributed to
the 'free-hitting' by Afridi and Co. Imran Khan has
always made a delightful speaker, and Nasser
Hussain was impressive. The poor show of the Lahore
and Faisalabad groundstaff was compensated for by
these stalwarts.
The Pakistani administration is finding itself in a
soup of its own making. A lot is being said about
the third Test at Karachi being played on a
'sporting' track, but what is the guarantee that
the Pakistani pacemen will exploit such a pitch
better than their Indian counterparts? The
Pakistani think-tank would have taken note of the
fact that India prevented them from declaring not
once, but twice at Faisalabad, in perfect batting
conditions. Pakistan were bowled out for 588 in the
first innings and 490 in the second. While it is
true that they were two batsmen short in the second
essay, with Inzamam's back playing up and Shoaib
Malik contending with a family bereavement, the
record-books will tell you that the Indian fast
bowlers sent Pakistan sliding from 488-3 to 490-8!
That too, at a stage when there was hardly any
interest in the match, with even Dhoni having
turned his arm over!
Debutant R.P. Singh received the Man of the Match
award for his five wickets in the game, Zaheer Khan
boosted his morale with four quick strikes in the
final stages at Faisalabad, and Irfan Pathan also
bowled much better than in the first innings. He
had already played a major role in the match with a
superlative 90 that rescued India from a perilous
position.
These performances seem to strongly indicate that
India's three quick bowlers will be high on
confidence as the third and final Test draws
closer. Given the pressure on the authorities to
leave some grass on the pitch, it seems virtually
certain that India will play the trio. In fact,
there is every possibility of the visitors
persisting with the same XI that featured in the
Faisalabad Test. Dhoni and Pathan are more than
capable of manning the no. 6 and no. 7 positions,
as they proved with magnificent innings under
pressure and against a fiery Shoaib Akhtar. The
likes of Kumble and Harbhajan are too good to fail
consistently. Both spinners are overdue for a
special performance, and this may prompt Dravid and
Chappell to play five bowlers.
Even the most passionate Pakistani cricket fan will
admit that the visitors are far more confident than
the hosts, who find themselves confronting their
skipper's back problem that threatens to keep him
out of the Karachi Test. The Indian players look a
relaxed lot, as was evident from the impromptu
'race' from the boundary to the pitch at the start
of the post-tea session. Yuvraj Singh beat Dravid,
Harbhajan Singh and Dhoni to the 'finishing post',
and got 'high-fives' from his colleagues for his
'achievement'. The tension, or rather the lack of
it, in a dressing-room, can be gauged from such
seemingly insignificant happenings, and it does
appear that the Indians are far happier than their
adversaries.
Inzamam and his team would do anything at this
stage to wind the clock back a month and request
all the luminaries who forecast 'green' pitches and
'trouble' for the Indian batsmen, to keep their
respective mouths shut. However, there is a better
and more practical option. All they have to do is
play to their 'strengths' and talents, and win the
Karachi Test.
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