The World Cup has begun and about time too. Far too many people were drawing mighty conclusions based on inadequate data. Now we have something, a very little something, to see but a word of caution here too. The way the matches are staggered at the World Cup, by the time you figure out how one set of pitches is playing, it is time to move to another. And except for the semi-final and the final, you don’t even return to the original venue. It’s a bit like a multi-course meal where the waiters take away one dish before offering another! If you work on the assumption though, that wickets in a geographically homogeneous area will be largely similar, and with experience you learn that this is not a completely arbitrary assumption, you would have found a few interesting pointers from the West Indies-Pakistan game. The first, and the most significant, is that Andy Roberts was right when he said that the pitches would be a bit different from those that everyone was anticipating. You would expect the ball to move around a bit with a 9:30 start and Umar Gul and Rao Iftikhar Anjum showed that by bowling beautifully but ending up two wickets short. In the end the game is not about looks and style but runs and wickets. Gul and Anjum were impressive but had they taken those extra two wickets the West Indies might have been about 30 runs short. What was even more interesting was the assistance that Darren Powell and Jerome Taylor got in the second innings. It means the openers could no longer pick the line and hit through it and that is wonderful news. They picked up wickets, though to bad shots, but that in itself suggests that teams chasing 240 are giving the total a lot more respect than they would on most grounds around the world these days. Keeping wickets seems to be important, though teams can run the risk of being over-cautious. Pakistan normally chase well but you just got the feeling this time that the top order didn’t trust the lower order enough. Pakistan’s big strength has been the lower middle order of Razzak, Akmal and Afridi. Their presence allowed the top order to take a chance or two. Now there is no Razzak, it already looks like a huge blow, Akmal’s form is patchy and Afridi is out for two games. For Pakistan to come back strongly, they will need a better start and the top five will have to score enough. I just get the feeling that if Imran Nazir isn’t consistent enough, we could soon see Shoaib Malik moving back up and Afridi coming into the lower middle order. And if Kaneria doesn’t pick up wickets in the next two matches, we could well see Azhar Mahmood back. The balance looks much better that way. It seems that India’s assessment of creativity in the middle order could well be right. Teams that get bogged down there are asking too much of the lower order and that is why India are placing a lot of their bets on Yuvraj Singh. They might want to take a look at how Marlon Samuels batted at Kingston. He seemed a bit reckless at times but that sudden mid-innings burst caught Pakistan off-guard. So what would be a good total? My feeling is that increasingly teams will start pitching for around 240 and hope, by keeping wickets and mounting a late surge, to reach 275. Increasingly too, the need for five bowlers with at least one back-up will be felt because even one weak link might make that difference between 240 and 275. It could pose a tricky question for India. If India play five bowlers, it means Pathan must play and that means it is unlikely that either Kumble or Sehwag will get a game, for Pathan doesn’t look carrying out the third seamer’s job; certainly not ahead of Munaf Patel. But Dravid would dearly love to give Sehwag a couple of more games before the match on the 23rd against Sri Lanka by which time the best combination should have been identified. Sehwag in form, with a hungry Uthappa on the bench would be what he wants most but each time Uthappa scores and Sehwag doesn’t, that possibility recedes. The optimistic, but dangerous route would be to play both Sehwag and Uthappa, leave out Pathan and play four bowlers. It might work, but it won’t be what the mathematicians call the optimal solution.
