Calcutta, Feb 17: More than a year ago, Shoaib Akhter was just another raw 22-year-old waiting in the queue after rolling out of that famous pace factory in Pakistan. Labelled as unpredictable and indisciplined, he finally squeezed into the Pakistan XI during last summer's tour of South Africa. Then came that fateful second evening of the second Test in Durban when stand-in captain Aamir Sohail tossed across the ball with South Africa closing in on Pakistan's first innings score with a bag of wickets to spare. The Rawalpindi Express went on to rip out five wickets in a thundering, unforgettable spell before being dumped back into the freezer with Waqar Younis returning from an injury vacation.Today afternoon, with Waqar watching from the dressing room, Akhter grabbed his second chance with two fantastic balls that blew away India's hopes of taking over the first tie of the Asian Test Championships. First, he stunned Rahul Dravid with a blinding yorker. Off the next ball, he drew an embarrassing red lineacross Sachin Tendulkar's career graph. And, as the 25-year-old superstar's middle stump took a brief walk, it also meant that Tendulkar had been handed out a first-ball duck for the first time in 102 Test innings.Within another 25 overs, the Indian batting line-up had been cleaned up with just a sparkling 79 from young opener Sadagopan Ramesh to salvage their reputation. And, by the time the umpires ruled out play in fading light on a Pakistani appeal, the visitors had completed an unexpected turnaround at 26 for one to reach just 12 runs short of India's slender 38-run lead. On the way, they also managed pull up with India on the points table with five points each to top a miserable party for the hosts.The match, unfortunately for India, is now wide open and that should give skipper Mohammed Azharuddin some tension with his batsmen now facing a possibly daunting second innings target. Maybe, he would also look back and wish he had never given that TV interview yesterday evening when he predicted atotal of 400 plus from his colleagues today.To be fair though, it did seem for most of the day that his batsmen would vindicate him. Ramesh smoothly flicked the first ball of the second day for a four and alongwith Kumble managed to save the dreaded first hour without damage. Kumble, too, played a significant role in that 65-run third wicket mission by keeping his end intact against some aggressive short-pitched stuff from Wasim Akram and Akhter.India continued on a sedate and non-violent path through the lunch session even as Dravid took over from his Karnataka captain. Ramesh, meanwhile, kept picking up the odd boundary to cut off the yawns spreading around the full house here. With minimum footwork the Chennai discovery kept those flowing cover-drives and sweet deflections flowing as he countered Pakistan's pace with a wonderful sense of timing.Akram's frustration mounted during this 56-run fourth wicket tie-up as he and Akhter started having problems with their run-ups as the no-ball countstarted rising to dangerous levels.Then came the twist in the tale as the Pakistan skipper called in Akhter for his fourth short spell of the day. In a few overs, Azharuddin and Saurav Ganguly were in the middle fighting a grim battle with Pakistan swinging the pendulum all the way back.At one point, it even seemed that Pakistan's 185 would seem too much as Azhar started skipping and hopping to the Pakistani pace music. The most jarring note in Azhar's affair with the Eden Gardens happened soon as he got hit on the head by Akhter bowling at half his original run-up. Ganguly too seemed unsure of how to go about it till a subdued Saqlain returned after a long stint in the outfield. Not having had a decent first spell the off-spinner made up for that with a fantastic ball that curved in and spun away to pack off Ganguly. From that moment, it was just a matter of time before the Pakistanis bounced back to their hotel wondering what lay ahead in this Test which has promised two different results in two days.
