Inzi pulls his weight

India tonight are like a team of mountaineers. They stand at the foot of a coveted summit, but the late evening fog has veiled the peak. The...

India tonight are like a team of mountaineers. They stand at the foot of a coveted summit, but the late evening fog has veiled the peak. They possess not a clue about how much altitude they must still strive to conquer, how many perilous ridges and rock faces they must negotiate. Only as tomorrow unfolds gradually will they procure a picture of the challenge ahead.

At stumps Pakistan are 355 for three, with Inzamam-ul Haq unbeaten on a fluent, restrained 118, and Yousuf Youhana supplementing his scratchy play with a bushel of fortuitous calls from the umpire to keep alive the hope of accumulating 38 runs to register a second consecutive century of the series. What will India see on Wednesday, the third and possibly decisive day of the Lahore Test? And how will they react? A mountaineer survives by envisioning every step of the route up, by playing out every contingency and its solution in the mind. No less is demanded of Test cricketers.

If they break up this partnership, they stare at a gentle plateau, stand-ins Asim Kamal and Kamran Akmal and the tail. If they, or circumstances or a mix, allow Inzamam and Haq to get away and fatten their 150-run fourth wicket partnership, even a glance up into the skies could induce attacks of vertigo.Inzamam has alluded to the wicket easing out and the need to gather at least a 500-600-run first innings total, in order to exert pressure on the Indians with numbers because there’s no longer anything in the track to trouble them.

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The man this stadium is named after finds himself comprehensively rehabilitated in the world order after a meeting with Tony Blair. And today, after a fortnight of extremely wild and outrageous conspiracy theories about a couple of one-dayers and the Multan Test having been fixed, Gaddafi Stadium has repaired Inzaman and his boys to a status commensurate with their talent and experience.

Umar Gul gave them one good spell yesterday, in the course of just 12 overs he laid waste India’s top batting order. Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan may have brought their team within fighting distance of a comeback, but on the second day all the honours belong to the Pakistanis. And to the umpires.

It’s a swapping game they play. From Multan, Pakistan have carted lessons learnt while watching the visitors apply themselves with discipline and self-control. There they contemplated the extreme set of protesting a couple of decisions that went against their batsmen.

In Lahore, India, having sleepwalked back to the shed in their first innings, must relearn their own lessons before the second innings. In the meanwhile, the air is thick with stories about them registering their indignation over four decisions that went the other way — three lbw calls that were turned down by Steve Bucknor and Youhana’s thick edge to keeper Parthiv off Kumble. However, be sure that India bowled well.Rahul Dravid mixed up his bowlers regularly, requisitioning the services of Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj and Virender Sehwag to make something happen. It didn’t.

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Pakistan suppressed their natural impulse for flamboyance. Imran Farhat mixed glib drives with some extremely inelegant hook shots — but at the end he had a century on the board.

Inzamam was quiet, only intermittently giving the visitors a sniff of wickets by racing his bulk for quick singles. Youhana, on the other hand, bore little resemblance to the valiant batsman who rescued some pride at Multan, if not the match. His play was often uncharacteristically scrappy. India will look back on this day and lament some runout opportunities.

On a track that has withdrawn assistance to bowlers, at a time when batsmen have ceded style for survival, breakthroughs lie in the field. India did not make anything of the chances that came their way. Be sure, even tonight, the match is evenly situated. Pakistan has a 68-run lead. But they must bat last. Could it be that fate of this encounter will be settled on Wednesday?