A very good article by Mr. Iqbal
Pakistan let down by its bowling against India
From Asif Iqbal
Former Pakistan and Kent cricket captain
LONDON: Purely on the basis of recent form, one had not expected Pakistan to win its World Cup encounter against India, but one did not quite expect that the defeat would come in this manner, with the batting succeeding in posting a decent score and then India’s batting big guns simply blowing Pakistan’s much vaunted bowling artillery clean out of the water.
Pakistan’s performance on the international stage during the last six months or so has been less than encouraging, but it has been the batting that has failed, while the bowling has won the few honours that have come our way. In fact, the batting has failed with such consistent predictability that it has made the ‘unpredictable’ tag, so often put on Pakistan, appear to be less than fair.
On Saturday at Centurion however, it was a different story altogether. The innings, for once, got off to a decent start and Saeed Anwar fought a great mental and physical battle to lead Pakistan to a very good score. 273 was not enough to say that the opposition had been batted out of the game, but it was very competitive and Wasim Akram’s body language as he came off the field seemed to suggest that he thought it should be good enough.
Yet, although it was as good a score as one could expect from Pakistan given its current batting form, it was never an innings in which anyone established his authority over the Indian bowlers. Saeed received support from Youhana, Younis Khan and Rashid Latif played a beautiful little cameo in the end, but they all fell just as Pakistan seemed on the brink of taking control.
Certainly, Inzamam’s unfortunate run out played an important part in the manner in which the innings was constructed, for he was looking good on Saturday. He was timing the ball excellently, not falling over on to one side as he is sometimes wont to do during the earlier part of his innings and his movements, for the first time in a long while, suggested confidence. Had he managed to play himself in Pakistan may well have crossed the 300 mark.
But the manner in which the Indians set about their task of getting the target set by Pakistan seemed to suggest that they would have got there even if Pakistan had made 330. There was a quiet, unshakeable determination about the way Tendulkar batted; there was total confidence and he completely mastered the bowling; in fact, he did more – he pulverised it.
Pakistan got back with Waqar’s two wickets in two balls but that did not seem to affect Tendulkar one tiny bit. True, it might have been a different picture altogether if Razzaq had hung on to a lofted Tendulkar drive soon after Waqar’s double strike for if Tendulkar would have been dismissed then, Pakistan might well have won. That catch should have been taken but it did not happen and Tendulkar proceeded to play one of the most outstanding innings ever seen in one day cricket.
By the twelfth over, he had taken the game completely from Pakistan and by the time he was out the Indians were left with only 4.3 to get per over. But it was not just Tendulkar. Kaif played just the sort of innings around Tendulkar that he was required to do and Yuvraj too showed great maturity in making sure that India did not lose the initiative, which they might have done if Pakistan had got another wicket immediately after getting rid of Tendulkar.
It was not a particularly distinguished performance from Pakistan’s much vaunted bowling attack. Shoaib seemed to be concentrating on blasting the Indians out and with Waqar, was guilty of bowling half volley after half volley, which even though they were being sent down at 95 mph, were unlikely to trouble a batsman of Tendukar’s calibre and disappeared at twice the pace they came.
The discipline of line and length, which the Pakistanis, it seems, have never thought much of, were nowhere to be found except in Wasim Akram and yet again there was a healthy dose of extras. There seemed to be little thought in Waqar’s captaincy for even when Shoaib and Wasim were brought on for a final do or die fling, they were not given any slips or close catchers which was inexplicable given that there was no way Pakistan was going to contain the Indians if they played the full fifty overs. An edge from Yuvraj went past where first slip should have been and with only four inside the circle, it was no problem at all for the Indians to knock the ball around and get four an over which was all they needed.
Ever since this board took office in 1999, it has been saying that it was preparing for the next World Cup. Yet, Pakistan has appeared to be the least well prepared of all the teams in this tournament. In five matches we have used four opening combinations, three people have played in the crucial number three position and some avenues, like playing Taufiq Umar as the wicketkeeper to allow the selection of an extra bowler, were not even examined.
The host of bowling coaches, advisors and analysts have not been able to instil in our bowlers the elementary virtues of line and length with the result that out of three Test playing sides against whom we have played thus far in the World Cup, one of them hit our bowlers for 310, and India would have taken them for much more if they had to.
It is not all over yet, but we are hanging by a bare thread and our fate depends not entirely on what we can do ourselves, but also on how some other teams fare in some of the remaining matches. But the one big lesson to have been garnered from the experience of this World Cup must be that good bowling is not necessarily what looks good on television and that the adage that attack is the best form of defence is not a policy to be applied universally irrespective of the situation.
For example on Saturday at Centurion, defending a score of 273, it was not necessary to attack. The infinitely more intelligent way of going about it would have been to try and contain the Indians and hope that good line and length would have induced mistakes from the batsmen.
That is how club cricketers from Holland restricted this same Indian batting side to a mere two hundred. There must be a lesson in that for Pakistan’s army of cricketing specialists and there must be something seriously wrong somewhere if a lesson so clear is not being heeded.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/
