A superb contest between bat and ball

The first day of the Karachi Test match showed Test cricket in all its blazing glory. There was good bowling, bad bowling, brilliant aggressive batting, frustration, and plenty of subtexts to the story of the day.

India won the toss, and put the opposition in. Having batted against huge first innings scores in the first two tests, winning the toss on this wicket was a double edged sword. With the jury still out on how the wicket would behave, it was a aggressive move to put the opposition in. Having gone in with three fast bowlers, India had the wherewithal to use the conditions.

Pathans first over, saw a Test hattrick, and for India, saw the back of two batsmen who between them had plundered 840 runs in 6 innings over the Lahore and Faisalabad games. It was as simple as that. Two perfectly pitched inswingers accounted for Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, after a superb outswinger had left the left handed Salman Butt with not option but to edge it to Rahul Dravid at first slip.

From them on, things went down hill for India. The Pakistan batsmen continued in aggressive vein, and apart from the runs they scored at a brisk pace, unsettled the line and length of the Indian bowlers. The bowlers, instead of concentrating on their own line and length, which on this wicket, with the first morning freshness, might have been lethal, were constantly reacting to what the batsman had done the previous ball. Add to that the inexperience and lack of control of line and length inherent in bowlers who average in the mid thirties (or worse) with the ball in Test cricket, and you had plenty of four balls on offer. A front foot cover drive, ensured that the batsman got the next one shorter, often wider, for the lashing square cut. In between all this, the wicket was easing, and the purposeful batting of Kamran Akmal put the bowling to sword in the midday winter haze.

Akmal was superb. Rarely out of position, he met every ball on its merit, and was always good enough to meet it with time to spare. There was exciting strokeplay all round the wicket, all executed with a calm assurance. It took a clever piece of bowling by the persevering Irfan Pathan to get his wicket. The slower off break caught the edge of Akmals bad and was collected cleanly by M S Dhoni. At 39/6, India might have expected a first innings score of 150 at the most. Pakistan ended up with 245.

So far, even with Akmals brilliance, Shoaib and Razzaq’s watchful resistance and the inconsistency of the pace attack, India had accomplished something it would have settled for at the start of play – bowling Pakistan out on the first day, under 250.

Pakistans bowling, with the fiery Shoaib, the irrepressible Mohammad Asif and the steady Abdul Razzaq was going to be a hand ful with the new ball, and so it proved. Dravid and Laxman, who opened the innings, fell to unplayable deliveries, while Tendulkar fell to his old bogeyman Abdul Razzaq. Sehwag fell as he is prone to fall every now and then. In between the Indians seemed to take a leaf out of Akmals book, and were positive.

Tendulkar got hit on the helmet by a nasting lifting delivery from Shoaib. The ball hit his helmet above his right ear and rebounded in front of square on the leg side. He didnt flinch, didnt remove his helmet, and quietly took a single. There was no reference to this event from the batsman for the subsequent duration of his stay at the wicket. A statement was made there, to his own dressing room and to the opposition.

The final subplot was the emergence of Sourav Ganguly, the fickleness of the sun and the final over of the day, where Ganguly raced across for a second run which he might have been forgiven for declining, to return to the strikers end to face up to Shoaib again.

India have left themselves a lot to do, after their indisciplined bowling and the effects of the Pakistani new ball, which is still on 13 overs old.

Day Two promises to be decisive. India won the first session, and lost the next two on Day 1, they must win atleast two out of three on Day Two to stay in the match.