Both teams will be reasonably happy with their performance in the first one-dayer at Peshawar. The match could have gone either way had it gone the full distance. But Duckworth and Lewis prevailed, which brings us to the question whether the Indian bowlers were being conveyed the pertinent figures at the end of every over. It is important that the coach keeps sending messages in such a situation, for that helps the bowling side to know exactly where it stands, and what it needs to do.
Pakistan deserve credit for pegging back the Indian batsmen, who at one stage looked like amassing a score of over 350. But the visitors were undone by the procession of wickets at the end of the innings, and as it turned out, they couldn’t bat through the full 50 overs. The confidence in the Pakistani camp will have been bolstered with the news that Shoaib Akhtar is fit and raring to go in the second one-dayer at Rawalpindi.
On the other hand, I don’t think the Indian bowling stands much of a chance to make a difference in the series. The bowlers are in for a torrid time, and I would like to reiterate my stance that these bizarre fielding restrictions should be eliminated before they destroy the game itself.
India should try to improve their fielding and cut out the twos and threes as much as possible. Pakistan probably missed a trick by holding back Afridi when they batted. He should have opened the innings, in view of his tremendous success against the Indian bowlers in last year’s series. The fielding restrictions had been lifted by the time he came in at Peshawar, which isn’t the ideal situation for him to bat.
As for Inzamam’s ‘controversial’ dismissal, my only view is that the laws of cricket are pretty simple and straightforward. There is no way the umpires could have turned down the appeal once it had been made. In fact, they might even have refused to recall the batsman had the Indians withdrawn their appeal, for Inzamam was clearly out as per the concerned law.
The ICC could probably consider empowering the umpires to give a batsman the benefit of the doubt if they feel that he hasn’t violated the law on purpose. But until that happens, the existing laws have to be accepted as they are. Cricket was known as a gentleman’s game. The game is still there, but the gentlemen have vanished, as several incidents in the past few years have proved. The Pakistani camp may be unhappy with the appeal, but everything happened so quickly, and the situation was so tight that the Indians had every right to appeal.
The Rawapindi pitch has offered some assistance to the quicker bowlers in the initial stages, but one gets the feeling that the wicket prepared this time won’t delight the bowlers too much. The Indians will be tempted to chase if they win the toss, considering that their bowlers are not in a very confident frame of mind at the moment. However, they will have at the back of their minds the fact that a team that chases in a One-Day International is always under some pressure.
This applies even to a situation wherein a team is chasing only 200 on a flat track. If the opposition manages to take a couple of wickets very early, the batting side will feel the heat. I personally preferred to bat first after winning the toss and set a target for the other side.
It might well be a good idea for both sides to try out something different in the intensely bowling-unfriendly conditions. Like opening the bowling with a spinner, a tactic that was splendidly used by the New Zealanders in the 1992 World Cup. You never know what innovation might pay off. If both camps opt for conventional methods, you might see another ‘batathon’, wherein one team ‘bats’ the other out of the match.
