Published: Mar 31, 2011, 10:36 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 19, 2014, 11:22 AM (IST)
By Madan Mohan
India’s edge over Pakistan in World Cup encounters remains intact as Pakistan eventually fell a fair distance short in a tense, close match. As in the 1996 encounter, Pakistan appeared on paper to have the more formidable team, but India raised its level while Pakistan seemed to buckle under pressure. And on that note, the question that begs to be asked now: Is Mahendra Singh Dhoni a charmed gambler or simply a great motivator of people?
How else does one explain a tight and accurate performance from both Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel under tremendous pressure? I am sure I would have not been alone in questioning the wisdom of choosing Nehra over Ravichandran Ashwin, especially when the spinners strangulated Pakistan in the middle overs. But Dhoni was vindicated again, and how!
Nehra found those yorkers that he couldn’t get going at all against South Africa. Patel persistently penetrated a tight channel around off-and-middle. We also saw the return of the “Turbanator” Harbhajan Singh, nipping a potential late charge from Shahid Afridi in the bud, but more importantly castling Umar Akmal who briefly threatened to take the game away from India.
Speaking of the Pakistani batsmen brings me to the difference between the two teams in the final analysis. No Pakistani batsman could convert his start into something more substantial and several lost their wickets to poor shots. That is somewhat understandable when a team bats first, but the chasing line up knows what it needs to do to get to the target, so shots like the one Mohammed Hafeez perished to were inexplicable.
Most of all, veterans Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq were found wanting and the margin of defeat may have been less flattering without Hafeez, Asad Shafique and Umar’s contributions. I don’t see fit to waste words on Misbah’s bizarre innings, in particular.
They could not find one man to go nearly all the way and hit a big half century, if not a century, which India did in Sachin Tendulkar. With a good deal of help from Pakistan’s fielders, at that. Kamran Akmal must be grateful to his teammates for sparing him some of the brickbats in the butterfingers department in the match that mattered most. The lbw call that didn’t go their way didn’t look out to me, notwithstanding suggestions that UDRS had been rigged in favour of India.
But be that as it may, not putting down four catches was within their control. Not often is the adage “catches win matches” emphasized more than it was in the India-Pakistan semi-final. One wonders how many more the great man may have compiled if Afridi too had obliged when he was on 85, incidentally the highest score of the match.
Yep, the pitches have not aided in the shattering of batting records and have consistently taken turn. Commentators described the pitch as resembling a national highway in the early part of the innings, but they had spoken too soon as it turned out. So, contrary to my expectations, India could not get Pakistan’s spinners away. But, fortunately for Dhoni, neither could Pakistan.
And with all three seamers firing, Dhoni could get all 10 off Yuvraj Singh and didn’t have to call upon Suresh Raina or Virat Kohli. He may be a charmed captain, but by making his luck count he does not hurt his cause. As much as his success is to a large extent a product of the team’s batting riches in a batsman-friendly era, he was at least more decisive and aggressive than his counterpart today.
Selecting Nehra ahead of Ashwin may have been a gamble, but what if you do not even gamble and play it safe, apprehending criticism? Do you recall when sometime in the last two years or so, England’s squad used to be unchanged match after match without particularly spectacular results to show for it? At the business end of the tournament, Dhoni has finally found some appetite for taking risks and it has paid off sufficiently well to take India to the final, beating the team I had backed to win the World Cup in the process (gulp!).
India may meet its toughest opponent yet in the final, the one I had described as almost too good to bet on. Australia did not have the ideal team for these conditions and Pakistan was, as some observers had suspected, a bit too excitable and volatile to handle the pressure of India-Pakistan. Sri Lanka goes about its business as calmly as can be.
Sri Lanka is even better than India at playing according to the situation and not gunning for glory (one important quality that has helped take India so far in the Cup, in my opinion). And should India have to bat under the lights in Mumbai on Saturday, it may be the acid test of this batting line-up.
The dream is still alive. India heads to the final and that should all but ensure that this is the most lucrative World Cup edition yet. And I kiss goodbye to any chance of getting to watch the match at Wankhede! Here’s hoping for an equally cracking finale to draw curtains on the World Cup and some illustrious careers.
(Madan Mohan, a 25-year old CA from Mumbai, is passionate about writing, music and cricket. Writing on cricket is like the icing on the cake)
