They say the trick to winning Tests is to play it session by session. India on the day realized that it was possible to work hard and stay competitive through an entire day -- and then give it all away in eight overs of uncontrolled madness.
The fielding side looked, at one point, to have neutralized the loss of the toss, but by the time play ended on day 1 in the second Test in Faisalabad -- for the first time in this series with no overs lost to light or other vagaries of nature -- it was bruised, bleeding, and on the back foot.
None of this, though, was foreshadowed at the start. India, so runs conventional wisdom, has the best batting lineup in the world -- an array of stars further boosted by the entry of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the development of Irfan Pathan.
Punditry suggests, too, that India's bowling lineup is incapable of firing out quality opposition on any but the most helpful tracks -- the bowlers, suggest available expertise, need all the help they can get.
And yet, for five years and counting, the mindset has been to pad the batting in cottonwool, to extend it as far as you possibly can without sacrificing bowling options altogether, to, in a word, bat deep in a game where Tests can only be won by bowling the opposition out twice.
It is perhaps a sign of changing times, or maybe just a Pavlovian response to yet another flat track, that for once Team India told its batsmen -- right, you have the rep, now deliver on it. It whittled its main batting roster down to five, for the second game in a row sacrificing an opener and this time, jettisoning Sourav Ganguly as well from the middle order in order to bring in an extra bowler.
The ploy may have been dictated by the pitch -- flat, gray, with dried grass rolled in, on which the ball came through comfortably onto bat. But it was high risk none the less -- it challenges the five frontline batsmen to not merely match, but exceed, Pakistan's in form lineup.
A bigger risk lurks off the field -- failure (and failure in a Test can come only when your team has been bowled out twice) will serve as a whetstone, sharpening hatchets meant for the necks of the captain and coach who will bear the brunt of public fury for axing Ganguly.
The gamble was taken anyway -- and it paid off initially, with the two incoming bowlers delivering. Zaheer Khan came in for the injured Ajit Agarkar and bowled with control and penetration; Rudra Pratap Singh came in for Ganguly and, showing none of the nerves a Test debutant can be expected to feel against an in-form batting lineup making first use of ideal conditions, bowled with controlled aggression and considerable spirit.
None of it mattered, though, in a final session that saw Inzamam and Afridi adding 163 for the unbeaten 5th wicket; a second good partnership following on from the 142 added by Younis Khan and Yousuf Youhana for the third wicket.
India had its chances -- as, in fact, it had in every session of play on the day. In the 78th over, Kumble zoomed in on Inzamam's pads for the nth time; for the nth time he beat the push and thudded into the pad. The ball landed in line, it hit in line -- but birthday boy Simon Taufel found reason to doubt and Inzy, who continued to struggle against the leg spinner (34 dot balls and 29 runs off 50 deliveries faced -- against, say, Shahid Afridi, who knocked 31 off 28 deliveries from the leggie), was very very lucky to survive on a personal score of 47 and a team score of 296/4.
Off the last ball of the 86th over, a short ball from Singh down the leg side saw Afridi gloving it to the keeper -- only for the umpire to signal the no ball.
Those however were the only chances India had in a final session of play that saw Inzamam and Shahid Afridi play with exemplary commonsense against controlled spin bowling from Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, then open out against some wayward stuff with the second new ball from both Pathan and Singh.
Inzamam, at close, looked to have found his best form, and produced the sort of lazy strokeplay that fetched him twin hundreds in his last Test on this ground. Afridi though was the standout -- coming in with Pakistan on 216/4 and in some trouble, the middle order bat put his head down after an initial burst of aggression, and controlling his adrenalin surges, buckled down to the job of batting his side back to strength.
There has been much talk of Afridi V.02 -- the new, improved version aware not just of his own need to dominate the bowling, but equally of what the team needs of him and when. This was our first chance to see that Afridi in action -- and it is an admirable sight, to watch unbridled aggression reined in by an unwonted caution (his first six -- a beautiful waft over long off to a well pitched up delivery from RP Singh -- came after he had faced 66 deliveries, and scored 52 runs in more conventional style. (Afridi celebrated with two blistering pulls off Pathan, off successive deliveries, in the 87th over -- one that went for 22 runs, and underlined Irfan Pathan's misery on the day.)
India went in with five bowlers -- but were effectively reduced to four when Pathan went AWOL. On a day when Rudra Pratap bowled in the early 130s and Zaheer Khan hit a day's peak of 136+, Pathan bowled a fastest of 128.4 -- but was, for the most part, a tick or three slower.
Rahul Dravid led well on the day. Faced with a track similar to the one on which, a week ago, he had stood watching his bowlers being mauled, he tightened his field placings, rotated his bowlers in short, sharp bursts, paired his bowlers with intelligence and showed a good sense of when to use seam and spin in tandem and when to switch to pure spin.
The one move that went against him was the taking of the second new ball -- and to see that coming, you needed 20/20 hindsight. Till then, India had stayed competitive -- or as competitive as you can be on a batting deck. The score at the end of 82 overs was 315/4. The first five overs of the second new ball produced 50 runs at an amazing 10 rpo in fading light; by the time the mandatory 90 overs had been bowled, Pakistan had powered to a very strong position, closing the day on 379/4.
During this session against the second new ball, Inzamam added 20 off 26 balls faced; Afridi blitzed a stunning 42 off just 24 balls -- and in doing so, buried any hope India had of restricting Pakistan to a manageable score.
With Inzamam and Afridi playing immovable object and irresistible force and both looking good for centuries, with Abdur Razzaq and Kamran Akmal to follow and batting conditions remaining excellent, India is clearly in for a long, hard grind on day two.
Go here for detailed reports on the morning session, and the session between lunch and tea.
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