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India vs Pakistan - 4th ODI at Multan - 2006.Filed under
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What do we really want when we are watching our Indian team play against Pakistan?? Of course a win, but I have met people who want the match to go interesting and then a win for us..One sided matches don't really please everyone, even when the winning team is the one you are supporting!!  Fourth one day international between India at Pakistan started with not much of speculations, but with lots of anticipation of Pakistan comming back strongly in a series where they are 2-1 down. Things went wrong for them when Shahid Afridi and Umar Gul failed to be fit for the match.. Shoaib Akhtar had already taken a leave from the ODI series.. Rahul Dravid won the toss for the second straight and he happily chose to field on a wicket that looked damp. The weather at Multan was not great - for batting I mean. For seam bowling, its was just next to perfect.. Pakistan Batting :- Below International standard if I may say so. Or very inexperienced for sure!! They played at the balls which they should have left, and then didn't had the wicket to play their full 50 overs. They should have taken some tips from Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar's inni  ngs in the third ODI
when they refused to loose any more wickets, when India had lost two
wickets for just 12 runs. Even when we had to chase 289, they made sure
that swinging ball don't get through their defence, and made perfect
foil for later batsmen. Pakistani batsmen gave the impression that they were playing on flat wickets that we had in the test matches, which certainly wasn't the case. The weather was very helpful, and the moral of Indian bowling very high. Indian bowlers may not have pace, but they certainly have the ability to swing it, and that did the trick.. Although Injamam (before getting out to Sachin Tendulkar - 7th time in ODI cricket - most by any bowler) played his part to redirect Pakistani Innings, and they even opted for Super Sub - Imran Farhat only in the 26th over, they couldn't manage to play out their overs, failing to give their bowlers a outside chance of getting 10 Indian wickets.. India Batting :- Pakistan opted for Razzaq and Sami to open the bowling for them, making Mohammad Asif the first change. That seemed to do the trick for them as Sami got Tendulkar in his first over and then Gambhir in his 3rd over. But Indian's didn't do the mistake that Pakistan has been doing - They placed THE WALL between Pakistan and Indian wickets. Yuvraj Singh again played some very handsome shots from the other end and these two made sure that target was well with in the reach..  Then a very strange thing happened - Rahul Dravid missed a full toss from Sami and was out leg before wicket. For once, the situation seemed to go little bat for India, but then we saw the future of Indian batting - Suresh Raina. He took the first catch of the match(A brilliant one at short point of Kamran Akmal) and hit the winning runs as well. In between, the showed show elegeant shots that reminded of England's David Gover to commentator - Waqar Younis!! Suresh Raina is the youngest in the Indian team, very much like a kid. He does brilliant fielding, moving around all over the ground - trying to field every ball himself but there always were doubts over his real part in the team - Batting. But today he certainly showed everyone that he is special in that department as well... India vs Pakistan - 4th ODI at Multan - The score Card.
If still you are unable to get the feeling of what exactly happened at Multan in the Fourth ODI, I hope the following two pictures will certainly help you!!   Related ArticlesArticle
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