It was entirely apt that the catch that spelt victory for India in the Test and series was taken by India’s captain Saurav Ganguly. He is the one who has molded this bunch of talented cricketers into a winning team and to do what has so far been impossible for other Indian teams and win a series in Pakistan. There were brilliant performances from individuals like Sehwag, who deservedly won the match of the series award, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, who all scored centuries and the superb bowling efforts by Anil Kumble, Balaji and Pathan and there was good support from the others at crucial times.
The fielding was top-class too most times, though for a while yesterday it looked like the anticipation of a victory was making the fielders grab at catches and dropping some of them. But the bowlers never dropped their heads and kept plugging away and were rewarded by some pretty inept batting by a totally dispirited Pakistani line-up.
That it took only 54 overs to dismiss the Pakistanis is clearly an indication of the kind of effort that was put in to try and save the match. The shots that dismissed the batsmen were pretty much played as if they were trying to win a game rather than save it. It wasn’t just the young inexperienced batsmen, but even those like Inzamam ul-Haq who repeated the mistakes that they had committed earlier.
In cricket, there are only certain methods by which batsmen get out, but there was no real attempt to learn from those errors and so all the Indian bowlers had to do was to bowl similar deliveries and the Pakistani batsmen obliged by playing the same shots. Yasir Hameed was still stretching way away from his body on the off-side to play extravagant drives and Inzamam ul-Haq was still pushing his bat out to deliveries that could have been left alone.
The manner in which Shoaib Akhtar came in and played shots as if he did not want to play another day also showed that there could well be something wrong in the Pakistani dressing room. He was facing the hat trick ball from Kumble and he slogged at it and was lucky to find the thick top-edge going to the boundary. He slogged every ball after that in the same over and was smiling away as if he had done something extraordinary. If only Pakistan had players who could bat with the application that Asim Kamal showed in spite of having an injured elbow, for which he had to take a pain-killing injection in the middle of his innings. He displayed courage, guts and determination, which unfortunately was not shown by the others. He needs a promotion up the order so that he can give the Pakistani innings the stability it needs at the top of the order.
India deserves all the praise for its sense of purpose, which never wavered and all the players contributed to a job well done. Anil Kumble’s cunning in getting the wicket of Youhanna and then his patience to get Shoaib Akhtar, who was trying to hit everything, was indicative of the team’s approach. It was attack when needed, patience too and also a wait-and-watch that helped the team to bundle out the Pakistani batting on a pitch still good for batting. Well done India, well done Saurav, Rahul and Company. We are proud of you!
