It is turning out to be a truly absorbing Test match. If the bat dominated the ball on the first two days, then the bowlers got awarded on the third day though the bat still wasn’t dominated completely. India’s bowlers chipped away at the Pakistani batsmen showing great determination. All the Pakistani batsmen got starts but were not able to convert those into the kind of big hundreds that Sehwag and Tendulkar scored. That would have been disappointing for the coach Javed Miandad who himself used starts to go on to some big centuries. What was clear in the way the Pakistanis batted was that the limited-overs hangover was still there in the batting, for the batsmen were hardly leaving anything, but trying to push the bat at deliveries that they did not need to play.
In One-Day cricket, with no slips in the position after the first few overs the edges fly away safely but in the Test the slips are waiting to pounce as Taufeeq Umer discovered. Yasir Hameed also has a tendency to push at balls around the off-stump and while he can get away on these pitches he might find that on wickets which have a little more bounce he will struggle. Having said that, he looks a classy player who will learn to make the adjustments that are needed for different pitches. It was he in the company of his captain Inzamam who ensured that India’s bowlers were kept at bay after their success in dismissing the openers one after the other. It was the first time in three days that a wicket had fallen in the first session of play. Inzamam is an underrated performer but any batsman who has got over 7,000 runs has got to be pretty special and he is the man in form too. For Pakistan he is one of the few who can play with either hand in the sense that he can play the horizontal-bat shots, which require the use of the bottom hand and play the vertical-bat strokes where the top hand leads.
Once again, India’s bowlers were successful in getting rid of the partnership in quick succession. Yasir Hameed will regret poking his bat out in a limited-overs shot to be caught behind and missing out on a century. Youhana who is not in form was cleverly confronted with Pathan by Indian skipper Rahul Dravid, having got him out playing across his front pad in the last two one-dayers. Youhana was at sea against the left-hander but his experience saw him through a torrid time till he fell to a leg-side catch by the wicketkeeper, which is one of the worst feelings for a batsman to get out apart from being the non-striker caught out of his crease by the bowler’s deflection on to the stumps. Moin Khan’s wicket to a well-disguised googly by Tendulkar off the last ball of the day was a real bonus for with a night’s rest the Indians will be confident of polishing off the tail. The big question will then be whether to enforce the follow-on or not and it is going to be a tricky decision for the Indians. The pitch has afforded turn to the spinners and is not going to deteriorate too much. It will take some more spin on the last day. Anil Kumble may have only one wicket to show for his efforts but he was always at the batsmen and kept probing away relentlessly. India have dominated the Test match and could well be on the way to record their first Test victory in Pakistan.
