Things were going awfully wrong for Doc Akhand. He was losing at snooker the last couple of days, and wasn't looking forward to his afternoon skirmishes with Qamrul Huda anymore. The samosas he had ordered several overs ago were not materialising, and Syed Mahboob who was supposed to be handling the other stuff was not being overly co-operative. To top it all off, after the first five overs the West Indies were none for plenty. It was not the time to make the customary predictions. Doc and I were at a loss, albeit for different reasons.
Philo Wallace and Stuart Williams, not your most destructive opening pair in the world, were giving the world's best quick bowler a torrid time. It is not often that Wasim Akram goes for 14 in the opening over. He was quick and he got movement, perhaps a bit too much of it. And the batsmen made merry. When Brian Lara won the toss and opted to bat he certainly could not have been counting on the support these two gave him. Wasim Akram was taken off after three overs to give the other new ball bowlers a chance to suffer as well.
The writing was on the wall, this was not a wicket the fast bowlers' union would be happy with. The story was repeated when the Pakistanis batted. They too got off to a flying start. Only the fact that Shahid Afridi insisted on walking across the stumps all the time meant Pakistan lost an early wicket. But Salim Elahi was confidence personified and paid back the Windies quickies with some rollicking shots. But the cards were on the table. This was a wicket for the slower bowlers.
Pakistan immediately brought on the spinners and should have had Lara removed immediately on arrival. The captain was only a pale shadow of his former self, and it was only a question of time before he committed hara-kiri. But his was not a knock that promised anything at all. The West Indies as always relied on the phlegmatic Chanderpaul to bring sanity to their ranks, but as is increasingly being the case, the hugely talented Hooper let his team down when it mattered most.
Pakistan is a gritty side although unpredictable is their middle name. But when the chips are down you can count on the Pakistanis to come at the opposition from all corners. The bowlers brought them back into the game.
In an obvious test of wills between two sides that are more or less evenly matched, Pakistan got the upper hand in the war of attrition from the mid overs till the slog overs. Thoughts of 300 plus, which was a distinct possibility at one stage, dissipated quickly and the Windies were fortunate to limp past the 280 mark.
True to form, the Pakistanis lived up to their reputation of living life dangerously and to the fullest. Loose bowling at the start gave way to discipline at the end. But they compounded matters worse with some careless batting that lost them some early wickets, including that of the skipper Sohail.
This was a match that never looked like reaching the heights that some of the earlier matches did. Pakistan mourned the absence of Saeed Anwar and Inzamam in their line-up. But the revised batting order did not make much sense either. Azhar Mahmood came up the ladder and Saleem Malik was pushed down, while part-timer Keith Arthurton prodded and pried and stretched the middle order to its limits. Although the resident expert on the West Indies, Sadaat S Kasem, expounded on the wisdom of making the fearsome - and, more importantly, experienced - pace duo of Ambrose and Walsh a permanent fixture in the squad (in his own words, ``Don't leave home without them!''), captain Brian Lara was able to make the best out of the depleted resources at his disposal. Keith Arthurton, in fact, did him proud.
In the end it was all too confusing. The wicket, which had taken a pasting over the week, struck back, favouring only the slow bowler. And for a change the batsman struggled. Once again the Grameen Dream Team failed to make the right connections, and I was wiser at the end of the match, knowing that, of course, I was better off using CityCell.