da esoccer bet： With the injury to Shoaib Akhtar, and Pakistan’s decision to stick to only four specialist bowlers, meant Pakistan allowed India, as well as the series, out of their grasp on the opening day
da cassino online： Osman Samiuddin08-Dec-2007
Shoaib Akhtar’s back injury meant it was not just the bowler, but Pakistan, in a must-win situation, on all fours on the opening day of the Test © AFP
Without a genuine allrounder in your side, playing five bowlers, or at least havinga viable fifth bowling option, in a Test is kind of like that special suit – ordress – that you keep locked up for most of the year: you only bring it out forthose special occasions when nothing else will do. For Pakistan, everything aboutBangalore suggests one of those occasions.First, a win and nothing else would do to salvage something from this tour; four menstruggled to take ten wickets in Kolkata so one more would only have helped takethe 20 that wins you Tests. Then, given India’s own injury concerns and severelydepleted bowling, surely a specialist batsman could have been replaced by a bowlingoption? They even called up a fast bowler – Iftikhar Anjum – from Pakistan forthis Test, yet didn’t feel it necessary to use him.And finally, when the attack Pakistan settled for included one debutant bowlingallrounder, one whose bowling average has touched 50 and had yet to take a wicket inthe series and a leg-spinner, all led by a bowler who is now, sadly, under apermanent fitness cloud, the situation simply screamed for another option.Instead, once Shoaib Akhtar broke down and Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Sami and DanishKaneria tired, Pakistan had Younis Khan, Salman Butt and Yasir Hameed as options.Commendable as it is that they are trying to get Hameed and Butt to gel with oneanother as an opening pair, bowling them in tandem is perhaps not the brightest wayof going about it.It allowed India to not only recover from 61 for 4, but do so in such explosivefashion that they ended the day in charge. Not only were further wickets hard tocome by, but scoring runs and boundaries became impossible to prevent. Had they beenmore assertive and gone for Anjum or Sohail Tanvir in place of one specialistbatsman, one of the two bowling columns would surely have shown better reward.Apart from building a hospital instead of an academy for their fast bowlers,Pakistan has to address one issue very soon. Nobody any longer doubts Shoaib’sskill, fewer people than before doubt his commitment and what he does off the fieldis mostly his concern; the most vital, in fact the only question, is whether he canremain fully fit and sustain it over a series or tour, because Pakistan simplycannot afford watching him pull up during a Test for much longer.In his ten-year career he has lasted a full series on only a handful of occasionsand in most of them he has, by the final Test, been a diminished force. The issuehas lingered through this series and having bit Pakistan hard in Kolkata, it did soharder here because at lunch, they had a genuine chance. He went off, worryinglywith a new problem in his back, only 10 overs in the bank. If there is frustration,is it at Shoaib? Or the management, for not drafting in cover? In his ten-year career he has lasted a full series on only a handful of occasionsand in most of them he has, by the final Test, been a diminished force It put an unnecessary burden on the rest, especially Arafat, who after a fizzingfirst spell, fell away physically, with alarming haste. Pakistan might be better offlooking to build on his batting and turning him in to a handy allrounder, ratherthan relying on him as a specialist bowler; only now is Abdul Razzaq’s carelessfrittering away of form and fortune coming back to haunt Pakistan, for the balance agenuine allrounder provides is difficult to better.Of course, neither quality allrounder nor fifth bowling options might have made adifference with Yuvraj Singh in this mood. To call his contribution to the day, thisseries even, simply a hundred is to call Shane Warne merely a twirler. This was muchmore, a summit meeting of mind, body, timing, power, placement and attitude, all ata place called the zone. Nothing would stop him, not good balls, not bad balls, notordinary bowlers and probably not good ones either.Still, the Test is not fully lost for Pakistan. Rather, from 365 for 5 on theopening day, it is India’s to lose. For some hope, Pakistan can look at the CapeTown Test India squandered last year and one in Melbourne four years ago, havingbeen in similarly strong positions after day one. It is a long shot, but it is onenonetheless and if Pakistan do it, it will be a greater escape than the last timethey were in Bangalore.