When Younis Khan and Taufiq Umar resume battle for Pakistan on day five of what has been an epic game of cricket between the traditional rivals, they will be up against eleven Indians and hopefully, a crowd of a hundred thousand.

Now that is a mouth-watering thought; a vociferous capacity crowd at the Eden Gardens. Day five of the game happens to be a Sunday, and then there is the prospect of watching the home team go flat out to take nine wickets and the visitors to go for the 327 runs that separate them from history. Despite Shahid Afridi's pyrotechnics on the fourth evening, India still have the edge, but then, you can never predict in Ind-Pak clashes.

Afridi's superlative 59 took away some of the gloss of some tremendous batting by the Indians earlier in the day. Rahul Dravid showed once again why so many people consider him the best batsman in the world. His twentieth Test hundred and second of the game propelled India towards an imposing lead. He was cool, calculated, and destructive. His batting average in Test cricket is second only to Bradman's among batsmen who have scored more than 5,000 runs in Test cricket. He also became the second Indian after Sunil Gavaskar to score a brace of hundreds in a Test more than once. Gavaskar achieved this feat thrice, and the way he has batted in the new millennium, one reckons Dravid will emulate and surpass him very soon.

Young Dinesh Kartik displayed pluck and pugnacity after coming in to bat in a difficult situation with skipper Sourav Ganguly falling to a 'nothing' shot early in the day and Laxman getting rammed on the forehead by a Sami steepler. The Tamil Nadu wicketkeeper-batsman played an enterprising innings, replete with some exciting strokes. He deserved a hundred, but was denied one by the dour Kaneria, who kept firing away from round the wicket despite some harsh treatment by the batsmen.

Delightful cameos by the Indian lower-order were followed by the declaration at 407-9. The Pakistanis were set a target of 422. Everybody, Pakistani supporters included, expected the pressure to be on the opening batsmen as they arrived in the middle to do battle against the Indian bowlers. Of course, the pressure was enormous, but then, Shahid Afridi is a man who doesn't really think too much about things other than bringing his bat down and hitting the ball as hard as he can. And so he did in a brilliant counterattack that silenced the Indian supporters and stunned Sourav Ganguly and his teammates, who were convinced that his dismissal was one poor shot away. He kept going for his strokes, and the ball kept flying to the fence and twice over it. He finally fell in the penultimate over to an impetuous shot, but by then, he had already got his team off to a cracker of a start.

If the two 'not out' batsmen can survive the first session on day five and knock off around 100-120 runs in the process, the visitors will fancy themselves to achieve the target. If they do so, they will establish a world record for the highest target chased to win the Test. Not that the Indians will make it any easier for them. Kumble and Harbhajan struggled a bit with a newish ball on the fourth day, but they will get more dangerous as the cherry gets older.

Pakistan need 327 runs, India need nine wickets. What's going to happen?

All those who have watched matches between India and Pakistan over the years know that it is futile to make predictions.

Let the cricket begin!