The Great Game between these feuding neighbours failed to materialise after India won a faltering match to take their place on Saturday against Sri Lanka in the World Cup final, their first for 23 years. They were deserved winners, mostly because a team who squander five chances, as Pakistan did when India batted first, do not deserve to win anything let alone the semi-final of cricket’s biggest tournament.
“We’ve had our struggles in this tournament, but we said it was important to peak at the right time,” said MS Dhoni, India’s captain after his team had won by 29 runs. “Everyone in this side has been tested and I think we’re ready for the final.”
Pakistan have lost all five of their World Cup meetings with India and those misses were instrumental in losing this one, after they allowed India to post 260, a target that was always going to be a tough chase under pressure.
Batting under lights has its challenges too, especially when squadrons of flying insects began to swarm over the ground. In a game that sought to guard itself against most man-made perils this was one the thousands of police and soldiers could do little about and Pakistan went quietly amid a blizzard of beating wings.
The charitable view of their performance is that it was nerves on the day, though when you hand Sachin Tendulkar, one of the best one-day batsmen five innings to make his 85 (he was dropped four times), there is a masochistic streak that deserves the opprobrium of its supporters, who in time-honoured fashion will no doubt torch a few effigies over the next day or so. If they do, and there is certainly a precedent from the 1996 World Cup when Wasim Akram had his house stoned as well, Wahab Riaz and Pakistan’s two off-spinners, Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez, ought to be exempt after sharing eight of the nine wickets to fall between them. Afterwards, Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan captain, congratulated his opponents. “I’d like to congratulate the Indian team and the Indian nation, they played better than us and deserved their win,” Afridi said. “But I’d like to thank the Pakistan people as well. We tried our level best and I hope thy enjoyed it.”
Although one of the less intimidating crowds in India, given Mohali’s 28,000 capacity and a preponderance of VVIPs, or what Roy Keane used to call the prawn sandwich brigade, apprehension was apparent, even in a veteran like Tendulkar. What else could have explained his scrappy innings after Virender Sehwag had given India a blistering start with a lightning knock that gave the crowd an early reason to show its voice?
This is probably Tendulkar’s last chance to win the World Cup so perhaps that, as well as having his hundredth international hundred hanging over him, added to the pressure of an already tense occasion. Yet, whatever it is that disrupts the little master’s flow, it afflicted him yesterday and he should have been out on 27, 45, 71 and 80.
Before those let-offs, he had also survived an lbw and a stumping, both of them adjudicated by TV replay, by a hair’s breadth. The lbw, off Saeed Ajmal was given out by umpire Ian Gould and looked just until Tendulkar asked for a review and the replays showed it to be just missing leg-stump. But great players will take any generosity given them and make you pay and the cost of Pakistan’s squandering was painfully apparent when the next highest score on India’s card was Sehwag’s 38.
Sehwag’s assault, which consigned Umar Gul to the status of net bowler after he struck him for five fours in an over, showed the need to attack new ball, which came onto the bat. He looked unable to be contained until Riaz got one to squat a bit off the pitch to have him lbw, the first of five wickets in an impressive performance.
India were 99 for one after 15 overs, but when Pakistan chased under lights, they were 29 runs short of that after the same period, which meant they had to increase the rate just as spin and reverse-swing began to make timing and placement more difficult. As the rate rose, none came to grips with it, though Umar Akmal at least raged against it briefly with a brisk 29 that included two sixes.
Misbah-ul-Haq, who was last man out for 56, played the long game after some of the earlier batsman had tossed their wickets away, but he ran out of viable partners to be a serious threat. Hafeez, who had bowled so well earlier, perished playing the kind of scoop shot usually seen in frothy T20 matches but not on an occasion of this gravitas. Asad Shafiq, too, undid his good work, a modicum of pressure being all that was needed for him to attempt a risky cut shot against Yuvraj Singh and lose his off-stump.
The success of Pakistan’s two spinners brought India’s decision to drop one of theirs for the pace of Ashish Nehra into question, but Nehra, castigated after India’s defeat to South Africa in the group stage, was superb with his skiddy left-arm swingers. Munaf Patel, also bowled well, leaving Yuvraj, bowled by a full toss for a golden duck when he batted, as the only weak link with the ball. But his left-arm spin held up well enough for him to take two for 57 from his 10 overs.
The lack of spark to the match did not prevent it being a TV phenomenon and reports from around the world spoke of drastic cab shortages in Toronto, Oslo and Hackney. Advertising rates during the match were said to be running at $25,000 per 10 seconds of air time, though with an audience reckoned to be one fifth of the world’s population, it was no doubt money well spent.
It appeared to pass without major incident too, with nothing more explosive than Amritsari chicken. The prime ministers of both countries, India’s Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan, attended and shook hands with both sides after the national anthems. Plenty of Bollywood stars also came, cricketers being about the only thing above them in the pecking order.
There will be even more at the final on Saturday in Mumbai, where two teams that bat deep and have variety to their bowling attacks, will contest a fascinating final.
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