Captain Kumble leads from front on Day I

Unfortunately that pair happened to be Misbah-ul-Haq and Sami, the number nine jodi, still unseparated in an effort of 68, brewed with a career-best 71 of one while other man Sami stands eight away from his mark with his unbeaten 20-run knock.

Having seen batsmen come and go at an alarming rate, Misbah hogged the strike, and responsibility. He was quick to realise that staying at the crease was of utmost importance, the runs will come by sooner or later. He dropped anchor so deep, that he kept moving his feet to every delivery without moving to the next run. His first Test fifty-plus score was a timely act of labour, mixing it with tight defence and deft footwork. He reached his half-century with a touch of innovation—a reverse sweep on the 147th ball with his fourth boundary.

Misbah knew where exactly his off-stump was, and took the challenge of playing on patience. While Indians hurled everything—pace and spin, from over the wicket and round, short and full, Misbah showed the calm of a Zen master, and gave little away for the hosts to pick on.

His concentration slipped once, and he was lucky to survive on 69 when Harbhajan dropped a stinger in front of square off Munaf, but he hardly played and missed in the last part of Day One.

Watching him from the other end, Sami emulated Misbah to perfection and blossomed in confidence. He wanted to take strike now and beginning from dodgy defending, smashed a straight six off Ganguly to reiterate why Misbah was now willing to give what his partner wanted. Their teammates watched the wicket easing out from the balcony, as batting became easy and frustration rode into Indian faces. Pakistan were eight down, but not down and out.

It was always about the first 90 minutes of play. Today, through sheer bad luck, it stretched by another 60. By then 13/1 had enlarged into 83/5 within two overs after lunch—Butt tried to cut a delivery from Zaheer Khan that jagged too close to him after pitching, Younis Khan then decided to reward Zaheer’s frequent effort to bang the ball in by pulling him straight into Munaf Patel’s hands at fine-leg.

One change Kumble bowled his top-spinner and Hameed played the wrong line as Pakistan closed the first session at 74/3. On immediate resumption, Sourav Ganguly reaped his reward for accurate sideways movement of the ball—trapping Mohammad Yousuf in the first ball he faced after lunch —and Munaf, who bowled with pace and in the right areas, got one to move a fraction outside to gain the nick of skipper Malik for no score.

Then the bat came into prominence and the consolidation began with Kamran Akmal joining forces with the rock-steady Misbah-ul-Haq. The two added 39 runs before Kumble got his 50th victim at the Ferozeshah Kotla—a quicker one kept low and Akmal’s attempt to go on the backfoot got him cleaned up just when he looked like working an escape route for Pakistan with his 30. Shoaib Akhtar came in and went out, for Kumble to add one more to that tally.

The Indian new ball bowlers did a good job, so did the two spinners and the part-timers duo.

To see a sub-continent Test match with a run-rate of 2.45 as a norm through the day can be pretty disappointing; and seldom does it happen that the batting team that walks out 6.2 overs before in fading light with two wickets remaining, and is still glowing with achievement.

That is because the scores could have been more disastrous but for that rearguard action in a team looking diluted in batting quality.