JEDDAH, 10 March 2004 — The hype surrounding the Indo-Pakistan cricket tour reasserted the fact that sports can be a great unifier. That’s what was primarily evident when India agreed to tour Pakistan and restart the series after 15 years, with the people to people contact once again getting the much-needed momentum. This momentum could accelerate the peace moves in the subcontinent that is hoping to emerge as leading players in the global field.
Regardless of the result, one thing is sure the memories of the tour will linger on the either side of the border. With the visiting teams praising the Pakistan people for their avid following, the series is bound to generate high feelings. But the fans should understand that it is only a game and at the end of the day there can be only one winner. But the fans and the nations can win with a display of sporting attitude throughout the series.
With Karachi and Peshawar not hosting a Test in this current series, I can well imagine the feeling of the people of both the cities. Munir Hussain, the president of Karachi City Cricket Association, can do a lot in dispelling the negativity attached to Karachi by inviting a conglomerate of foreign players and hold a mini series to bolster Karachi’s image.
The best thing that happened was the understanding shown by both the boards — PCB and BCCI — in ironing out the wrinkles that threatened to trip up the series.
Now all the off-field action has thankfully subsided, the pre-match predictions are sure to take centerstage. The key question, who will win?
Many factors, including teams, grounds conditions, umpiring, technology deployed, rules applicable in case of in complete matches — Duckworth Lewis or?, and the weather, will all play a part. In engineering the law of averages apply, but each element of an activity is given a weightage and all these elements are summed up to determine the final figure which helps finalize a result.
If every player is analyzed considering all the ingredients, then we can see how they compare head to head and this could help in making predictions.
Pace bowling could be as venomous as a good spin attack. Pakistan seems to have a wider choice of pace whereas, the Indians seem to have a balanced attack backed by a strong batting line up. Pakistan always had the better pace attack in the region.
Indians have their tails up from the recent tour of Australia, ignoring their performance in the finals of the triangular series against Australia and Zimbabwe. They have not only tamed the pace and spin on hard and bouncy wickets but to score 700 runs is no joke. One thing is evident that the Australian Academy has failed to produce substitutes of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
When it comes to India and Pakistan any game, anywhere, the players bring out their best. Therefore, it is going to be one of the most interesting series of the coming six weeks.
PCB has invited Andy Atkinson — curator from UK, who specializes in preparing wickets which best suit the home teams. Naturally, considering the pace attack Pakistan will opt for, hard and fast wickets will be the order of the day.
All the wickets will behave differently but Lahore is known to be a batting paradise. In my opinion the one-day series could well be determined at the completion of the third one dayer in Peshawar. The two matches in Lahore could be high scoring and high in entertainment value with the results going to the team producing the better display on the day.
Umpires also play an important role as do the growing reliance on technology. Also the rules applicable to each tournament could weigh in the way the series will likely go. Do we know which document/laws to refer to in the forthcoming series? We hope that the weather will favor the series. Normally, Lahore and the north experience storms and torrential rains during this time of the year, but let us keep our fingers crossed. No matter who wins the series, the fact that the teams have started playing and the people will be seeing some of the world’s best players in action is enough to term the move as a gigantic success.
