India vs Pakistan, Faisalabad test - so far..Tag
Article
 Few may say that Indian tailenders
made quite a few runs and that's why India took lead in the first
innings at Faisalabad, but make no mistake - their aren't many tailenders in Indian batting now a days. We all know what Irfan Pathan is capable off, and when he along with Mahendra Singh Dhoni successfully negotiated the first hour, there was no looking back.Anil kumble has always given high price for his wickets and Harbhajan Singh can make some very quick runs. And that's why, Kumble handled 60 deliveries from Shoaib Akhtar and his company of "dangerous fast bowling" for his 15 runs and Harbhajan made 38 off 48 balls with 2 huge sixes. And if that's not enough, Zaheer made quick 20 runs off 32 balls with a six. Even Rudra Pratap Singh easily defended 29 balls...See the Scorecard. So far we have witnessed 9 days of cricket between India and Pakistan and it won't be wrong to say that our team has played better cricket then them. Now when we have taken the lead, may be of just 15 runs, it speaks for itself. And if that's not enough, add this to the story - they have asked Shoaib Mallik to rejoin the Pakistani Team in the morning, who was with his sick father. Isn't this shows that they are afraid of getting in a position on Day 5 from where they will need all of their batsmen to save the test. They already have their Captain Injamam-ul-haq struggling with back pain and said that he will only bat if its absolutely a must!! Team India have already taken Salman Butt's wicket with Pakistan leading by 137 runs.  The ball is 48 overs old and as Injamam said some days back - Kumble is the main threat for his team!! Even if we have to make 250-270 runs in last two sessions, it won't be impossible. The reason I say this is very simple - Making 200 more runs and then getting 10 Indian wickets on this dead Faisalabad pitch is very unlikely for Pakistan but getting 9 wickets(two struggling with different factors) and then making 250 runs is very much possible!! But who am I trying to fool... we all know from the Day 1 that its going to be a dead test match as the pitch is!! We can just hope for some trills. Not necessarily get them. Related Articles |