IN the final analysis, the series was won by the team that played better cricket when it mattered most. I am not talking of just the last game, mind you. It happened all through the One Day series. Any naysayer can check the statistics and see for himself that the Indian victories were better planned and executed than were the two Pakistani efforts. It was a close affair in Karachi, but the last two games in Lahore betrayed the difference between the two sides. It was not that much a difference in the skill level of the players as it was in terms of their capacity to absorb pressure, and, may I say, in terms of having a proper game plan.
The way the bowlers capitulated in the fourth game where Pakistan could have sealed the fate of the series, and the way wickets tumbled in the last game, together betrayed the weak nerves in the Pakistani camp. If you ask me a moment to define what this business of holding nerves is all about, I will without hesitation point my finger to the catch that Tendulkar took of Inzamam in the last game. Inzamam’s shot selection at that stage of the game betrayed weak nerves that forced an ill-advised shot. In contrast, Tendulkar pulled off an almost impossible catch centimetres off the boundary rope. It was skill, judgment, athleticism and nerves, all in one motion. If you take a look at the whole series, you would find many such moments, not the least that last over bowled by Ashish Nehra in Karachi.
As for the game plan and drawing-board strategy, the Indians, again, were ahead of us. Even when they lost vital wickets at the top of the order, the Indians were able to score at a brisk pace that lessened the pressure on the lower middle order. This happened in the last two games that were played at Lahore. Sure enough, it was a conscious effort by the Indian batsmen who were executing a team strategy on the field. In contrast Pakistan got bogged down when they started losing wickets, and every player apparently had a strategy of his own, the only common point of that strategy being the individual’s desire to shoot himself in the foot. How else would one explain the dismissal of Yunus Khan, Inzamamul Haq, Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Malik, even Mohammad Sami?
Of course the Indian bowled well and caught even better, but the point is that the batsmen should not have attempted ambitious shots at the wrong time. The game was still not over when Pakistan had lost seven wickets and Moin Khan was on the wicket with Sami. Just imagine what it might have been if any one from Inzamam, Razzaq or Malik had been giving him company.
As I saw those shots being played, I failed to understand the rationale behind such atrocities. In the end, Pakistan could only bank its hopes on some show of raw nerves on the part of Indian bowlers and fielders, but that never came.
The worst part in this episode is that it is not the first time Pakistanis have shown such lack of strategy, or their inability to take singles when the boundaries dry up at any stage of the game. Consolidation, to the mind of Pakistani batsmen at least, is all about saving wickets and does not involve taking singles, or converting singles into doubles. All too soon the pressure starts telling and gives way to a false shot. This is as much to do with the players’ inability to think clearly as it has to do with the team management’s inability to provide strategic guidelines in clear terms to the players. It does not make much sense on the part of the coach to keep saying in public that international players are supposed to take care of their problems on their own. This just doesn’t wash.
IN the final analysis, the series was won by the team that played better cricket when it mattered most. I am not talking of just the last game, mind you. It happened all through the One Day series. Any naysayer can check the statistics and see for himself that the Indian victories were better planned and executed than were the two Pakistani efforts. It was a close affair in Karachi, but the last two games in Lahore betrayed the difference between the two sides. It was not that much a difference in the skill level of the players as it was in terms of their capacity to absorb pressure, and, may I say, in terms of having a proper game plan.
