So near, Butt so far; India go 2-1 up

Geoff Lawson was dead against the idea, but Shahid Afridi insisted and the team management, keeping in mind his previous exploits at this venue...

Geoff Lawson was dead against the idea, but Shahid Afridi insisted and the team management, keeping in mind his previous exploits at this venue, agreed to gamble on the Pathan. So did the Indians — by giving the shining white kookaburra to Irfan Pathan for the first time ever since his celebrated comeback in recent times.

Second ball of the battle between the two, Afridi took the long walk back, all cleaned up. And Irfan celebrated as the Pakistani all-rounder looked dangerous in his seven-ball stay. The dismissal left quite an impact on the visitors as their assault on Team India’s 294 was left short of ammunition entering the climax zone.

So, after centurion Salman Butt with Misbah-ul Haq had stitched up 80 in 87 balls defying the spin duo of Murali Kartik and Harbhajan Singh on a wicket that afforded slow turn, and brought their team within 94 runs in the last 10, Pakistan lost the game by 46 runs. They folded up in 47.2 overs to hand over a 2-1 advantage to India before proceeding to the Sahara City, Lucknow, for a two-day break between hectic travelling.

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Yuvraj Singh, who used the long handle to good effect, turned his arm over for the wicket of Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik, and capped it with a run-out of Mohammad Yousuf to take away the Man of the Match award.

Kamran Akmal, who swapped places with firebrand Afridi in the Pakistani batting card at No 7, didn’t have the powerful forearms to tonk the ball beyond the rope and found Harbhajan on way, while Sohail Tanvir came in and went without facing a delivery and Abdur Rehman was yorked.

RP Singh, who had earlier benefited with Younis Khan’s indecision about his off-stump to a ball that jagged back— the batsman shouldered arms —came back in his second spell to break the spine, dismissing the two late-order batsmen and effecting a run-out.

A tiring Butt, too, fell by the wayside, facing his 142nd delivery, trying something different in what was otherwise a neat collection of copybook approach in his innings of 129.

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Butt’s innings with two half chances—one on the right side off the second slip fielder and the second on the left of first slip in the first over—was the best solo effort at the Green Park, but the honours on Sunday were reserved for the best team effort. India notched up the highest ever total in this township, and Butt ironically had a hand in it, too.

He dropped Yuvraj Singh at mid-wicket off Shoaib Malik — the Indian vice-captain was batting on four as he top-edged an attempted sweep. India had just added six more to 129 when Gautam Gambhir was third out and runs came mostly with acute leg-work. Yuvraj later played the same horizontal shot on one knee with deadly effect, hitting a timely 77 with three sixes and four boundaries in his 95-ball stay, and added a match-winning partnership of 100 for the fifth wicket with Mahendra Singh Dhoni in just 92 balls to seize the initiative back.

The Indian duo took special liking to the hardness of the changed ball and brought down a barrage of sixes. First Yuvraj hit two in one over off Abdur Rehman and then Dhoni stacked up his counterpart’s off-spin once over the rope, and once over the tent in the stands.

The Indian captain was unfortunate to miss a deserving half-century by a solitary run, done in by Shoaib Akhtar’s slower delivery. While Akhtar was unlucky not to pick a wicket first-ball when Kamran Akmal missed a regulation catch off Sourav Ganguly, his spell never looked threatening except in patches.

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It was left to Sohail Tanvir to stop the early flow of runs from Sachin Tendulkar and Ganguly and Pakistan’s first change bowler responded with a superb first spell of 8-1-18-2, and accounting for both the openers. Even towards the end, when birthday boy Robin Uthappa and Irfan Pathan went wild with the willow, the wrong-footed left-arm seamer returned unscathed while his seam and spin colleagues went for runs.

Scoreboard

India

S Ganguly b Tanvir 39

S Tendulkar c Akmal b Tanvir 29

G Gambhir b Rehman 25

Y Singh c Misbah b Rehman 77

MS Dhoni b Akhtar 49

R Uthappa b Gul 19

I Pathan not out 17

H Singh not out 10

Extras: (6b, 3lb, 3nb, 17w) 29

Total: (for6 wkts in 50 overs) 294