March 1, 2003	Saturday	Zul Hijjah 27, 1423

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CENTURION (South Africa), Feb 28: Last-ball sixes, frog-like jumps, fading light, potatoes, broken window panes and — war.

One-day cricket matches between India and Pakistan have seen it all and Saturday’s high-voltage World Cup clash here promises more.

Millions of hearts sank in India when Pakistani batsman Javed Miandad smashed Chetan Sharma’s last delivery for the winning six in the Austral-Asia Cup final at Sharjah in 1986.

The nightmare still haunts the Indian paceman, who recently said he was fortunate the fans did not burn or stone houses in those days.

“The players have no problem with each other, but fans do not see it that way,” Pakistani veteran Wasim Akram said. “For them only a victory will do.”

Clearly, fans in India and Pakistan have not learnt to accept defeat sportingly despite 85 one-dayers between the two since 1978.

Players thus can’t afford to put a foot wrong or make a wrong move.

Trouble began in the second match itself between the two teams.

Indian captain Bishen Singh Bedi forfeited the game in Sahiwal, — even though his team needed just 23 to win with eight wickets in hand — to protest four successive bouncers by Sarfraz Nawaz against tiny Gundappa Viswanath.

Success brings instant fame as Miandad discovered in 1986. Lesser-known Indians Rajesh Chauhan and Hrishikesh Kanitkar also had their brief moments of glory for carving out victories over Pakistan.

But the flipside is that players houses are not safe from the fury of fans.

Pakistani cricketers felt the heat after losing their last two World Cup matches against India. Allegations of match-fixing and reports of Wasim’s home in Lahore being stoned soured two excellent games.

This even after Pakistan had gone on to reach the final in 1999 while India were knocked out in the Super Six.

When India were forced to bat in fading light in Sharjah and lost, angry cricket board officials immediately branded the desert venue as being pro-Pakistani and refused to play there for two years.

Fading light, however, did not deter India from doing the unexpected at Dhaka in 1998 when they successfully chased the then highest total of 315 to win the Independence Cup in the last over.

Frayed tempers unmask the stifling pressure on the players.

Miandad was so irritated with Indian wicket-keeper Kiran More’s incessant jumping and appealing in the 1992 World Cup match in Australia that he instantly produced a carbon copy, more eye-catching than the original.

The picture of the Pakistani batsman jumping like a frog and yelling back at the Indian wicket-keeper still bemuses viewers.

During the 1996 World Cup in Bangalore, Pakistani opener Aamir Sohail struck Indian paceman Venkatesh Prasad for a boundary and asked the bowler to go fetch the ball. His concentration lost, Sohail was bowled next ball.

India won that match and maintained their World Cup stanglehold over their arch-rivals with a victory three years later in England even as soldiers from both sides fought the Kargil war over the disputed Kashmir region.

Burly Pakistani batsman Inzamam-ul-Haq was once so incensed at an Indian fan in Toronto for calling him a potato that he leapt at him with bat in hand before security stepped in to cool tempers.

Inzamam has since lost weight, but the pressure to score will be no less on Saturday. In four matches so far at the World Cup, Pakistan’s premier batsman has scored just 10 runs.—AFP