No Pushovers

Mushtaq Mohammed became a folk hero in Pakistan when he led his team to aresounding victory over India when the two countries played in 1978 after a gapof about 16 years. In that series in Pakistan, India not only lost the matches,its fabled spin quartet was dismantled by the marauding Pakistani batsmen.

Surprisingly, Mushtaq lost the job and his place in the team for Pakistan’sreturn tour to India under Asif Iqbal. Still, we have to sit up and take noticeof when he says that the Pakistan team that arrived yesterday is the weakestever and resembles a club side.

As if to buttress his point, Mushtaq said that Indian captain Saurav Ganguly,upon learning of the make-up of the Pakistan squad, must have had a heartylaugh.

There are many former players and experts who share Mushtaq’s view, thoughin varying degrees, based primarily on this Pakistani team’s seemingly weakbowling attack.

One of the few dissenting voices is, expectedly, Inzamam-ul-Haq’s. ThePakistan skipper’s rationale is curious though, something to the effect thatlast year Pakistan lost a series at home and this was India’s turn to returnthe favour.

Now, Reverse Spin believes in cyclicality only with regard to the monsoon,and anti-incumbency only in politics. But Inzamam’s prediction, howeverperfunctory it may sound, may not be mere formality.

On paper, this Pakistan attack is weak. Danish Kaneria is the only bowlerwith a respectable strike rate (number of balls bowled per wicket) in Testmatches of 60.7. The rest of the attack will hardly pick this statistic for anafter-dinner talk.

It is 76.05 for Abdur Razzaq, 76.20 for recalled off-spinnerArshad Khan, 81.06 for Mohammad Sami, 70.83 for Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, 71.67 forborn-again leg spinner Shahid Afridi and 97.63 for under-the-chucking-cloudoff-spinner Shoaib Malik. Mohammad Khalil went wicketless in his only Test sofar. To put the numbers in perspective, Waqar Younis’ ended his career with astrike rate of 43.4.

However, individual brilliance flowers with alarming regularity when Indiaand Pakistan play. Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, and Javed Miandadreserved their best for the old rival. When they last played in India in 1999,Saqlain Mushtaq bagged four consecutive five-wicket hauls and Afridi, a one-dayspecialist, came up with a scintillating 141 in the Chennai Test. Two testslater in Calcutta, Shoaib Akhtar announced himself to the world by taking outRahul Dravid and Tendulkar off consecutive balls. Then there was Umar Gul atLahore last year, turning in a match-winning performance with the ball, andSalman Butt spoiling BCCI’s 75^th anniversary celebrations at theEden Gardens with his bat.

Don’t be shocked if Mohammed Sami, whose pace is comparable to Shoaib’s,comes into his own. Rana swung the new ball viciously at good pace in Australiaand will be itching to test himself against the Indian batting. Kaneria came ofage in Australia. Away from the shadow of Shoaib, any or all of these could puttheir hands up to be counted.

In batting, Pakistan have been facing problems with the top order. But Buttscored a Test century in Australia, a certain stamp of quality. Yasir Hameed notso long ago was one of the most promising batsmen in the world. Younis Khan mayproduce his best yet to repay the selectors for making him the vice-captain.Inzamam and Yousuf Youhana are quite adept at changing the course of a match.

The lower order, especially, packs quite a huge punch. Shoaib Malik, Razzaq,Kamran Akmal and Afridi can very well tip the scales on a given day.

The Indian team, on the other hand, does give a very settled look, but thatcould be deceptive. Gautam Gambhir has a long way to go before becoming anautomatic choice. Virender Sehwag, despite his eight hundreds, does not quiteinspire confidence with the way he plays and misses and gets out toself-indulgent shots. The skipper himself is not exactly in the form of hislife. Irfan Pathan is coming back from an injury, as is Sachin Tendulkar. AshishNehra is fit, at the moment. When it comes to his fitness, one has to take itone moment at a time. Lakshmipathy Balaji has recovered from his injury, but wasstruggling to keep his economy rate below six while bowling to second-stringbatsmen in the Challenger series.

Eventually, it may boil down to which one of the two elevens can gel betteras a team. As Harsha Bhogle wrote recently, "Make no mistake, Pakistan havethe men to win the series. Now whether they have the team to do so, I do notknow. Nobody really does."