One question I would like to ask Abdul Qadir is — “If you felt that Pakistani bowlers had always ‘done things’ to the ball, then why didn’t you talk about it earlier?” His allegations have saddened me deeply. We hardly played together, so I don’t really know whom he was referring to. One cannot help but get upset when a former cricketer like him makes such statements just to gain some publicity.
I would also like to ask the Indian think tank; “Why didn’t you do at Lahore what you did at Rawalpindi?” Looking at the way the Indians bowled on the first morning of the third Test, they might well have won the series by now, had they bowled first in Lahore.
The Indians swung the ball beautifully. Balaji bowled very well and he has a bright future in international cricket like his colleague Pathan.
The Pakistanis batted poorly and most of their batsmen looked completely out of sorts against the swinging ball. It was left to Sami to show his teammates how to bat, and his knock took the team past 200 when they could have been bowled out for less than 150.
India have certainly gained the initiative, but what I could not understand was the move to promote Patel to the opening slot. In fact, I would say that the Indians have given their opponents a 10 percent chance of coming back into the match with that one defensive move. Saurav or Yuvraj should have opened instead. It was harsh on the boy, who had kept wickets the whole day and been in the thick of the action throughout, thanks to the bowlers who were making the ball talk. But he displayed grit to keep his wicket intact till the close of play.
The Indians should look to bat for two full days and do their best to tire Pakistan on the field. At this stage, it seems as if only an extraordinary burst by one of the Pakistani bowlers will bring their team back into the game. But then, cricket as we all know is an unpredictable sport.
It has been a memorable ‘first innings’ in cricket. I am thankful to the Pakistani and Indian media who attended my press conference on the 12th of April and gave it a phenomenal amount of coverage. Hopefully, my ‘second innings’ in cricket will be a lot more memorable than the first!
