India proved only one thing, that it takes a team to win a series, not bowlers delivering balls at 100mph
MEDIA response to the electric, recently concluded series of One-Dayers, often dwelt on the cliche of “Like a Hitchcock whodunit”.
Sadly, Hitchcock never produced whodunits; you always knew the villain. It is someone like Robert Ludlum with his intriguing plots, counterplots and stories within stories that is more relevant.
Just to begin at the end, when the entire story at Lahore appeared to be headed for “the end” rather rapidly, the two lion-hearted campaigners — Moin Khan and Shoaib Malik brought back the issue to life for one final battle with the weary bowlers. Now this was precisely what had happened a couple of days earlier at the same venue when India, in dire straits, had found two unsung heroes in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif.
It had been predicted by well-meaning pundits that it would be a tense series and consequently the quality of the game would suffer. Nothing like that really happened. Tension, as Shakespearean actor Sir John Gielgud once said is healthy “before the entrance” and matures into quality performance. You don’t have to look far beyond the batting of Inzi, Sachin, Dravid and the bowling of Shoaib and Pathan and the later stars to appreciate this. It was quality cricket and make no mistake.
As for the tension, well, for those who anticipated the political variety, they went home disappointed. Visions of film stars and glam brigades from both sides of the border, Ministers of the realm rubbing shoulders, President Musharraf in deep conversation with Nusli Wadia, from Bombay, a grandson of the Qauid-e-Azam. Rajmata of Jaipur and the superstars of the screen and the field from bygone years gave it the kind of nostalgia and feel good ambience that no event manager could have replicated!
This cricket will be talked about for decades. Win a toss, lose a match; then win one back and another chasing in the day time. The clincher at Lahore saw a scenario that both sides would have loved to lose the toss dearly. The dew in the evening was horrendous and the fourth match had seen India take full advantage of late evening agonies of the bowlers. So Inzi changed the script this time on fateful 24/3 but ran into a different problem — some disciplined Indian bowling and an old-fashioned collapse. Moin and Malik would have gone down in history of the game if they had pulled it off with the asking rate getting into double digits and rising. But what a match. There was never a dull moment in the entire series, if you permit a cliche.
There was never for that matter any ill feeling of even the regulation kind. No sledging; no personal scraps referrals to the umpires or stoppages. The match referee must have enjoyed the relaxation his Pakistan visit provided.
And a word about match fixing. How ridiculous this whole imbroglio was! Just think a suggestion was made that for reasons of goodwill promotion or for wagering interest the events were “divided up”. It would require the indulgence of most of the stars to pull off something like that. And who pray would orchestrate it? Mr Riaz Khokkar or Mr Brajesh Mishra? And what if one or more of the lads started to sing to the media (they do these days you know!) And what if next time when a match is fixed for purposes of profit the same lads will point accusing fingers at having done it for another cause, so what the hell! No it was a nice try by some failed fiction writers, but let us get on with the game.
Imran Khan in 1992 won a famous victory allowing Akram the liberty of bowling wides and no-balls as long as he did not sacrifice speed and his own genius. The rest is history. I wish Inzi had done the same with Shoaib and he rest. Who knows it might have worked.
The Indians had come with a fledgling outfit in the bowling department, and they were up for grabs. Harbhajan had been lost to injury as had Kumble — two key players. Pathan was thrown into the cauldron or at the deep end, and what a swimming pool! Balaji is still a rookie and the great combatant Agarkar was in the fray for similar reasons. The part bowlers were a disaster on either side. The batsmen of the subcontinent don’t take kindly to mediocrity in bowling! But one last word about the fielding. Forget the dropped catches and odd slip-up in the dew and the tension under the lights. How both sides raised their fielding to the occasion just as the bowlers did their bit and the batsmen went into orbit!
India proved only one thing, that it takes a team to win a series, not bowlers delivering balls at 100mph 
