When he came in to bat, the scoreboard read seven for the loss of two wickets. The dour Yasir Hameed, recalled to the Pakistan XI for this game, and the mercurial Shahid Afridi had been sent back to the pavilion by the Indian new-ball bowlers.

In his 100th Test, Inzamam-ul-Haq had a fight on his hands. But of course, he is no stranger to adversity. On so many occasions has the man battled hard to bail his team out of crises, when the stakes were much higher than those at Bangalore. Multan in 2003, where his unbeaten match-winning hundred saved Pakistan from an embarrassing defeat to Bangladesh, is just one of the many instances in which his performance with the bat underscored his genius and grit.

The pitch did not have any demons in it, and the Indian bowlers did not look half as lethal as they did on the last day of the Kolkata Test. However, Pakistan needed a superhuman effort to emerge out of the situation their openers had put them into with poor strokes.

Inzamam, helped by his deputy Younis Khan, not only resurrected the innings, but also snatched the reins of the game from the home team. Nothing the Indian bowlers tried worked, nothing Ganguly thought about succeeded in the face of some magnificent batting by the Pakistani captain and vice-captain. Inzamam, playing in his 100th Test and only the third Pakistani to do so, went on to complete a superb hundred, and Younis followed suit. It was the Pakistani vice-captain's second hundred of the tour and with the benefit of hindsight, it has to be said that the additional responsibility has brought out the best in him. One cannot help but feel that Imran Khan, not for the first time in his lifetime, got it right when he identified the elegant right-hander as a potential leader when the latter was not even a permanent part of the team.

While Younis exuded pugnacity and panache, Inzamam as always mixed grace with brutal power. The Bangalore crowd, delirious in the morning after the two early strikes, was silent for most of the day.

The two batsmen have added 316 so far, and in the process smashed several records. Their stand is the highest by a Pakistani pair in a Test on Indian soil, and Inzamam's unbeaten 184 is the highest individual score by a Pakistani captain against India, beating Zaheer Abbas' 168 at Lahore in 1984-85. The Pakistani captain looks as ominous as Virender Sehwag did on the first day of the Multan Test last year. Sehwag, unbeaten at 228 on day one, went on to score 309 in the game. If Inzamam lasts till the tea interval on day two, his score will be hovering around the same mark, and after that, who knows?

Having said that, it is important that Pakistan carry on in the same vein and declare after reaching the 550-600 mark. The Indians are sitting pretty with a 1-0 lead, and the pressure is on their opponents to win this Test to square the series. Inzamam, Younis and the subsequent batsmen have to bat long enough to ensure that they cannot lose this Test, and at the same time, give their bowlers enough time to take twenty Indian wickets to win the Test. Considering the way Messrs Sehwag, Tendulkar and of course, Kartik and Dravid have batted in this series, it will be a formidable task.

So it's not as if the pressure is completely off Inzy and his boys, although they are getting there. A score of 600, and two or three Indian wickets by stumps on the second day, and they will be pleased as punch.