Kotla whodunit

PITCH & TOSS Once again, the toss decided the match because of the pitch. On Saturday, Bob Woolmer picked up a piece of the earth near the ...

PITCH & TOSS

Once again, the toss decided the match because of the pitch. On Saturday, Bob Woolmer picked up a piece of the earth near the wicket and squeezed it, to find it crumble like breadcrumbs. Winning the toss and batting first was half the battle won. For this, the BCCI and DDCA must share the blame

ONE-MAN TEAM

Sehwag’s dismissal again sparked a collapse. The batsmen must see him as a pivot, not a hinge. From Srikkanth, and via Tendulkar, to Sehwag, India’s ODI batting has lived on the fortunes of one batsman. Yet again, Pakistan’s runs today were spread among it’s top six. Guilty: All the batsmen

NO GAMEPLAN (BATTING)

Story continues below this ad

Chasing 303 did need an early impetus. But with the wicket crumbling, did it make sense for the openers to go after the bowling? Woolmer said he thought the openers were trying to outdo each other with each shot. And why was Dhoni sent in again at No 3? Dravid or Kaif would have calmed the nerves and set the road for a final assault in the final ten. Coach and captain should have known better

NO GAMEPLAN (BOWLING)

On the surface looked good, with Dravid setting attacking fields and keeping four fielders inside the ring. But the Pakistanis were smarter. They attacked early on, upset the line of the bowlers, then played a period without giving away wickets and picking up the singles. The bowlers were happy to give away the singles, lacking the will to get a breakthrough and force the Pakistanis to change their game plan. So Pakistan reached their 100 inside 15 overs; scored 84 from the 10th to the 25th without losing a wicket.

The next fifteen overs saw 64 runs being scored for the loss of just 2 wickets. A total of 114 singles were scored in the innings. With six wickets in hand, Pakistan scored 94 runs in the last 10. And where were the bowlers bowling? Of the 303 runs scored, 160 came on the leg-side with 19 boundaries. And they were bowling to an offside field! Dravid must take the flak for this

11 INDIVIDUALS, 0 TEAM

Effort is prime, results are secondary, John Wright always told this team. Today, the Indians made no effort and got no result. Two crucial run-outs showed they were daunted down by the enormity of the task; two of the finest runners in the team were caught in no-man’s land. Granted it was a huge total on a crumbling pitch but even so wasn’t 159 runs too large a margin of defeat? The whole team is to blame, because the whole team let themselves down

SCOREBOARD

		PAKISTAN: Salman Butt c Sehwag b Zaheer 3, Shahid Afridi c Dhoni b Nehra 44, Shoaib Malik b Agarkar 72, Yousuf Youhana run out 50, Inzamam-ul Haq c Dhoni b Agarkar 68, Younis Khan c and b Nehra 40, Abdul Razzaq c Sehwag b Nehra 0, Kamran Akmal b Agarkar 5, Naveed-ul Hasan not out 9. Extras: (lb-5, w-7) 12 Total: (for 8 wkts in 50 overs) 303 Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-68, 3-153, 4-191, 5-282, 6-282, 7-294, 8-303. Bowling: Zaheer Khan 10-0-65-1, Ashish Nehra 10-0-72-3, Ajit Agarkar 9-0-58-3, Harbhajan Singh 9-0-39-0, Dinesh Mongia 7-0-40-0, Sachin Tendulkar 5-0-24-0. INDIA: V Sehwag c Afridi b Naved-ul-Hasan 21, S Tendulkar b Anjum 9, M Dhoni c afridi b Arshad Khan 24, R Dravid run out 19, Y Singh Run out 13, M Kaif lbw b Razzaq 4, D Mongia c Younis Khan b Arshad Khan 0, A Agarkar c Youhana b Afridi 16, H Singh not out 20, Z Khan c Younis Khan b Arshad Khan 7, A Nehra c Mohammed Hafeez b Afridi 1. Extras (B-5, lb-1, nb-3, w-1) 10 Total: (all out in 37 overs) 144 Fall of wickets: 1-31, 2-36, 3-654, 4-84, 5-93, 6-94, 7-94, 8-129, 9-139 Bowling: Rana Naved-ul-Hasan 6-0-28-1, Rao Iftikhar Anjum 7-0-32-1, Abdul Razzaq 9-1-33-1, Arshad Khan 10-1-33-3, Shahid Afridi 4-10-10-2, Shoaib Malik 1-0-2-0.