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Pakistan thrash India to take lead in 1 dayers

Hyderabad (Karachi), Sept 28: Pakistan made a perfect start to the golden jubilee season when it registered a morale-boosting five-wicket win over arch-rivals India in the opening match of the Wills Challenge Cup at the Niaz Stadium here on Sunday.

Having bowled out India for 170 in 49 overs after the tourists had won the toss and elected to bat first, Pakistan achieved victory in 44.3 overs but not before bringing the followers of the game on the edge of their seats.

After Saeed Anwar and Shahid Afridi had provided a blistering 70-run opening stand in 78 balls, some reckless and irresponsible batting by the middle-order batsmen left Pakistan struggling at 138 for five with the wicket providing all sorts of help to spinner Nilesh Kulkarni. But Inzamamul Haq rose to the occasion and batted very intelligently to carry the home team to victory and provide a crucial 1-0 lead in the three-match series. The tall batsman remained unbeaten on a priceless 35 that contained four cracking boundaries. The Multan-born batsman faced 63 balls.

Saeed and Shahid, after putting the Indian pace attack to the sword, failed to read the left-arm spinners of Kulkarni and were adjudged leg before while playing on the back foot.

Saeed, skipper of Pakistan for the first time against India, hit a six and four boundaries in his rapid 29-ball 30 while Shahid faced 60 balls and scored 45 runs with the aid of five sizzling boundaries and a huge six.

Ijaz Ahmad virtually threw away his wicket while playing an over-ambitious shot off Robin Singh to be caught in the first slip while Salim Elahi's nightmare at the international level continued when he was involved in a terrible mix-up with Ijaz to be run-out.

Hasan Raza looked in all sorts of discomfort against Kulkarni before falling to the same bowler. Tendulkar had the lion's share in dismissing Hasan when brought off a marvellous reflex action catch in the first slip.

Kulkarni bowled splendidly but ended on the losing side. He extracted great support from the wicket and made the life of the batsmen miserable with his crafty bowling. Despite being hit by Saeed Anwar for two boundaries off his first two balls, Kulkarni finished with splendid bowling figures of 10-2-27-3.

Abey Kuruvilla and Debahish Mohanty, specially the latter, faced the bitter lesson of bowling on a more batsman-favoured track when they were hit ruthlessly to all parks of the field by the Pakistan openers. This victory over India cannot compensate for the hopeless performance of the Pakistan team in the Sahara Cup last week but it will help a long way in lifting the morale and confidence of the home players ahead of a gruelling season.

Sunday's win also helped Pakistan maintain its perfect record at the Niaz Stadium where it has lost not a single match in the past five outings. interestingly, on the previous five occasions, Pakistan had batted first.

Earlier, Sachin Tendulkar made the right call on the spin of coin and had little hesitation in electing to bat. The reason might have been that the team batting first here had won on all the five previous occasions. Had Tendulkar been a little more thoughtful, he would have put Pakistan into bat because the behaviour of the wicket was unknown to all as it was a newly-laid track and no match had been played on it before.

But if Tendulkar had hoped that history would help him this time also, that was not be the case.

Speed merchant, Waqar Younis, playing for the first time in five months for Pakistan, was quick to made inroads in the Indian camp when he beat Saurav Ganguly with pace and bounce on the sixth ball of the match to have the left-hander caught at square-leg.

Four balls later, Younis got the all-important scalp of Sachin Tendulkar - beating him with the swing. A banana-like in-swinger left the 24-year-old master batsman all at sea as he helpless watched the castle behind him get destroyed.

As India had prepared for an assault with five overs to spare after consolidating their innings through partnerships of 58 and 89 for the third and fifth wickets respectively, Aqib Javed got his acts together and bamboozled the tourists with his accuracy and controlled swing. In one of the most remarkable spells of fast bowling, Aqib Javed bowled four batsmen and off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq claimed wickets on successive balls to send the Indians crashing out for 170 after being comfortably placed at 166 for four.

The last six Indian wickets lasted just 14 balls and both Aqib and Saqlain found themselves on the verge of recording hat-tricks only to be denied.

India's sensational and dramatic collapse started when Aqib bowled Ajay jadeja who was starting to get ready to punish the home bowlers. Jadeja scored 42 with three fours from 77 balls.

Saqlain, bowling from the far end, first had Saba Karim on the fifth ball on his penultimate over and on the next ball accounted for Rajesh Chauhan in an identical fashion when the batsman tried to sweep him and being easily caught at backward square-leg.

Rahul Dravid, India's top scorer with 50 which came off 81 balls with two boundaries, in the 49th over became Aqib's second victim when he was yorked and bowled. A ball later Aqib found himself on the verge of second career hat-trick when Abey Kuruvilla's stumps were send scattering all over but Debahish Mohanty denied the experienced Pakistan pacer his second hat-trick against India.

Nevertheless, he completed his tally of four wickets on the final ball of the over when Nilesh Kulkarni also couldn't defend his wickets. Aqib, who was a bit off-colour in the morning probably because of difference of his and Waqar Younis's pace, finished with four for 29 from eight overs to take away the Man-of-the-Match award. Saqlain Mushtaq was evenly impressive as he ended up with three wickets for 14 runs while Waqar Younis had to satisfy with two wickets for 21 runs.

Pakistan, in the end, though won the match, there were several areas of the play where massive improvement was needed. And fielding is at the top of the list. On Sunday, no less than four catches were dropped. The sense of responsibility has to be injected into the Pakistan batsmen because they might escape with a second-rate Indian bowling by playing careless shots but will not last long when they play South Africa and the West Indies between October and December.

Regretfully keeper Moin Khan,usually alert behind the stumps, was among those who missed chances and committed the solecism of leaving his place more often than not.

The most evident factor of Sunday's match was that there was an inspiration amongst the players which was missing when the team played under the leadership of Ramiz Raja. It appears that Saeed Anwar has quickly adjusted into his new role as a leader and is motivating the team which was lacking for the last five months.

The second game of the series is on Tuesday at Karachi.