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India v Pakistan A fairy-tale match One of the most abused clichés in sport is the one about the game, ratherthan a team or individual, being the winner. For those on the losing side,especially after a contest decided by the length of a fingernail, such aglib phrase is no more than a slap in the face, another reminder of fallingagonisingly short. But sometimes, maybe once every decade or so, sport hasthe ability to transcend itself and render the result immaterial. So it waswith this one-day international at Karachi Dileep Premchandran revisits a night touched by magic India v Pakistan The birth of reverse swing This wasn't a Test that you would call great in the traditional sense. It was a no-contest: Pakistan won by an innings and 87 runs, their biggest win over India at the time. But the match was significant for the performance of one man – Imran Khan took 11 wickets, eight of them in the second innings, five in the space of 25 balls, and the legend of reverse-swing was born Sambit Bal on Imran Khan’s Test in 1982 India v Pakistan One resounding stroke Almost two decades later, Javed Miandad, the scrapper who knew not how to throw in the towel, would confess to having almost done just that Dileep Premachandran on that Sharjah game in 1986
An epochal moment Dileep Premachandran on Gavaskar’s last Test in 1987 Jadeja's blitz, Prasad's triumph and Miandad's last gasp Amit Varma on the 1996 World Cup ODI The rollercoaster Test Anand Vasu on the spinetingler at Chennai in 1999 Many points of crescendo Chandrahas Choudhury on the Kolkata Test of 1999 The Tempest |
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