Come home boys, Asia Cup is over

This windfall for the Indians came at a time when the Pakistani openers, Saeed Anwar and Imran Nazir, were using all sorts of methods — orthodox and unorthodox — to frighten the bowlers with the ferocity of their attack and terrify the fielders with the power of their strokes.

The debutant Amit Bhandari and the stocky Thiru Kumaran would want to erase this match from their memory. These two medium pacers, put together, were responsible for conceding more than half the runs Pakistan made — 165, with Kumaran creating the dubious record of becoming the most expensive Indian One-Day bowler. His figures of 0-86 were worse than Karsan Ghavri’s 0-71 off 11 overs in the 1975 World Cup.

What could the rest of the bowlers do, though they did their bit to restore some balance in India’s favour. The strike force was Anil Kumble. His three-wicket spell had, at one stage, given India hope of restricting the Pakistani total. But Youhana and the wily Moin Khan consumed the middle overs without playing any risky shots and, with sharp running between the wickets, maintained a run-rate of five an over.

And once into the slog, it was mayhem. Ganguly had forgotten that Robin Singh too exists and allowed both Bhandari and Kumaran to share the last few overs. The batsmen pulverised the bowling and the last over from Kumaran produced 18 runs.

For the second day in succession the stadium was overflowing with people but their hero from Bengal disappointed them. Ganguly’s early exit meant Tendulkar had to play a dual role, that of an anchor as well as that of an attacking batsman. An asking rate of more than six per over — India were docked two overs for a slow over rate — is never easy to achieve, that too against bowlers who are accurate and quick.

Rahul Dravid for a while filled in the breach created by Ganguly’s departure quite admirably, pulling and driving as he has rarely done before. But his attack did not last long. Mohammed Azharuddin followed Dravid without troubling the scorers much. The navigator of the Indian ship, Tendulkar, did not have the stomach for a fightback and his departure, with the score not having crossed even 100, left the rest of the batsmen rudderless.

With the team having no spine and spunk in the middle, the rest of the batsmen played for the sake of consuming balls and overs. The Pakistanis too, so sure of victory, became listless on the field, making no serious attempt to wrap up the match. This gave a limping Ajay Jadeja another chance to play a long but meaningless innings, an innings in which he was dropped three times.

It was a knock of no consequence, the batsman being under no pressure as the match had already been lost by then.

India fly back home, having been knocked out of the tournament. Pakistan and Sri Lanka play each other on Monday, before they meet again in the final on June 7.