Faisalabad is not too far away from Lahore, so there was not going to be much change in the conditions or the kind of pitch that would be there for the second Test and so it turned out, as the pitch played nice and easy and Pakistan helped by a late burst of power hitting by the irrepressible Shahid Afridi, came close to getting 400 runs in the 90 overs for the day’s play. There was drama before the toss too, as both teams decided to make changes to their eleven for the game. With the first Test ending in a draw with the batsmen dominating the proceedings, the only changes could have been in the bowling department. That’s what Pakistan did by surprisingly omitting Rana Naveed who took the only Indian wicket to fall and Mohammad Sami who would thus get more time in the dressing room to polish his vocabulary for future Tests, and also learn some new facial expressions. India was also expected to bring in another bowler, but they brought in two seam bowlers. But it was the players they dropped that raised eyebrows.
Ajit Agarkar got two of the five wickets that the Indian bowlers took at Lahore but found himself out because he is not in the inner circle, where others with lesser performances don’t get dropped but get extended chances. Saurav Ganguly, as the world venus and mars knows, is not anywhere near the inner circle and so found himself unceremoniously left out of the eleven, as the team think tank opted to go in with five bowlers.
On placid pitches, a team has to look at an additional bowler who can help take away the pressure and the strain of bowling and does give the captain some options. There’s of course Tendulkar and Sehwag as well as Yuvraj, who can turn their arm over more than usefully but they are part-time bowlers and so captains will use them only if all options are closed. What was surprising is that they opted for three left arm bowlers to operate with the new ball. The debutant R.P. Singh was the most successful as he bowled the right line and kept the ball up and allowed it to do its bit in the air and on pitching. His temperament was impressive too, as even after a bad over he was prepared to come back and try and get a wicket. Zaheer making a comeback got a wicket too, and that too of a batsman who was set and looking for a big score. Harbhajan and Kumble did get a bit of turn but the slowness of the pitch allowed the batsmen to make the adjustment.
It was a batsman’s day again, as the pair that took the game away from India in the first Test, once again came together for another big partnership, after the loss of the first two wickets. Younis looked confident from the first ball that he faced and his batting has come on in leaps and bounds, as has his appetite for runs. Mohammad Yusuf on the other hand is an experienced campaigner and he is no doubt being helped by the fact that by the time he comes into bat there’s hardly any swing and the ball comes straighter on to the bat. Irfan Pathan who used to get him trapped in front on the last tour has not only slowed down but is not getting the swing that makes him a wicket-taker. What he was trying to do by pitching the second new ball half way down the pitch at the fag end of the day rather than getting it to swing by pitching it up, is a mystery.
No wonder he was clouted for huge sixes by Afridi, for at that pace it was like giving a school boy candy and Afridi who brings the carefree school boyish approach to batting was only too happy to accept it. Inzamam has looked rock solid and he may have been overshadowed by the pyrotechnics of Afridi but he was getting runs and not at a slouch rate either.
Pakistan dominated the first day but India won’t be too worried, as they know from Lahore that anything Pakistan does, they can respond equally well. After all, the distance between Lahore and Faisalabad isn’t too much.
