A classic Javed response

It’s a smart ploy. Michael Holding has explained often enough how some batsmen’s eyes roll and you even get to see their whites as the duck. It can be a frightening experience. A little like a trembling cornered deer in the forest facing extinction as the hunter lines up the rifle and looks to finish off the job with one shot.

Aim true and aim straight: direction, line, length and Lillee. Analytically it means: off-stump channel, angling it in, short and bouncing and (Lillee’s motto) not giving up on yourself.

What it explains is how the game is one of chess-like manoeuvres with touches of Shakespearean tragic-comedy on a stage watched by millions world wide. It is the mental thing: the survival of the fittest.

It worked for Akhtar and it worked for Javed and Pakistan and in this case also Inzamam: he had no choice but to follow his master’s advice. What we had were 92 runs and five wickets and Akhtar taking two of them in the one over that shattered India’s resistance on a pitch doing something for anyone of genuine pace. But, as explained during the limited-overs series, let’s not call him the Rawalpindi Express. Akhtar could probably jog alongside the engine and still beat it into the station.

Out of the debris of the Indian second innings emerged Parthiv Patel with some entertaining strokeplay and maturity with a half-century. He is a long way from the Adam Gilchrist school of technique, but there were signs that in time his expertise will also grow and his dual role as wicketkeeper/batsman will reach a stage that he can take over in the one-day side as well.

And even Ajit Agarkar managed to get his batting act together and put some runs on the board. He is not a genuine all-rounder; certainly a long way down the ladder of the Kapil Dev class. When he scored that century at Lord’s almost two years ago Agarkar was prematurely hailed as the new Kapil. Not a chance. He is learning but that’s about all. His L plates are going to take a long while before they can be removed and meanwhile India have to look at the selection issue for the decisive Rawalpindi Test. If Zaheer Khan is fit, will he return? May be.

What might have brought a nod of confidence to Team India’s bruised psyche in Lahore was the sight of their captain, Sourav Ganguly, having a go at the nets. There was no Akhtar-type pace to test his reaction to the short stuff but it is going to come in Rawalpindi. Javed will see to that. Yet Dada in the nets was a sign of encouragement.