India stood jolted as Pakistan won four ODIs on the romp
If you look at cricket as a sort of historical cataclysm, the past twelve months have really dished it out. First India’s tour of Pakistan and against all odds, weigh in with a sparkling performance and came back with the laurels. The Indian subcontinent goes into waves of ecstasy and the media eulogizes the issue until all adjectives in the Queen’s English and other vernacular dialects are exhausted. And now in a dramatic change of scene, Inzy’s boys defy the form book, all known logic and what looked like the Indian juggernaut’s irresistible progress, pull out some heroic performances and steamroll India’s glamour batting lineup to come up with a 4-2 scoreline. This leaves Indian cricket devastated, the pundits in a frenzy of self-examination and the selectors tearing their hair!
What really happened? Was one team in the decline and the other on the ascendant? Were there some pathetic performances from front runners which cost India the series? Was there an overlay of overconfidence? Or did the visitors have some unbeatable secret weapon? Quite emphatically it is a NO on all counts. Let us put in the proviso, however, that Saurav Ganguly’s terrible loss of form has to be mentioned, but as they say one swallow does not, a summer make.
Pakistan came into the One-Day series as underdogs. One well known columnist wrote that there was little argument that India would win but that it would be nice if the visitors put up a good fight and if the matches were close! In fact, some optimists were even talking about a 6-0 scoreline bearing in mind that the Pakistanis were up against the ‘the most glamorous batting lineup in the cricketing world’!
Yes, cricket is a team game but we must look at some individual brilliance amongst the winners. Shahid Afridi got the opening slot after the initial Kamran hiccup and this was the pivot of the batting blitz. Even a quick 30 or 40 gives the innings a momentum and clears the way for steady batting. And Shoaib Maalik played his part like a seasoned actor at number three. His mixture of aggression and innings building took everyone by surprise, including the Indian bowlers. And Inzy was always there — for the acceleration, for the middle-innings steadiness and for the final push. While there were some ins and outs with Butt, Youhana and Younis, there were no outright failures, no passengers that had to be carried.
Naveed-ul Hassan was the find of the series as was Kamran Akmal earlier in the Tests. In the absence of Shoaib Akhtar, Pakistan had looked a little inadequate in the opening bowling department. After all, the legacy of Waqar, Wasim and now Shoaib had not yet passed onto the newcomers, especially since Sami is so injury prone. The fielding improved vastly, as always happens when things are going right for a team. The batting grew in strength as the series progressed. And the bowlers made a generous contribution. It will be debated for many months once the euphoria of victory fades whether Kaneria could have been more comprehensively used in the One-Dayers; but both Arshad and all-rounder Afridi were effective with the slower stuff.
Pakistan were a born again outfit. Their body language improved as the One-Dayers followed one another in rapid succession. There was better cohesion and greater commitment, something that is not always there in the team from across the border. In fact the team is often described as ‘unpredictable’. Here, in India, in this hot crucible of early summer, they became suddenly very methodical and predictable. And the leadership was the icing on the cake or the salt in the biryani. Inzy is an understated captain. But knowing that odds were against him and yet that there were few pressures, he pulled out all stops. He was not only a good ambassador but a great leader of men, a quality that is not always attributed to him.
It was a successful tour from so many points of view. I will dwell on one or two that struck me the most. The stray stone throwing incident at the Pakistani team coach could have been blown up, and would have been in the old days. But I swear I saw Inzy smile when a reporter asked him about it. Also the bottles rained on the outfield at Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi were also made too much of. In fact, during that match there were two major decisions that went against the visitors, in one case, a rare mess-up by the third umpire. Nothing flared up.
If anything can determine that there will be more across the border exchanges, hopefully in better weather, in the years to come, then it is the spirit in which these matches were played both on and off the field, and who knows in the years ahead the spectators might even give a standing ovation to Afridi’s sixes and Inzy’s lusty pulls!
India stood jolted as Pakistan won four ODIs on the romp 
