India lost the Test even before it began

I cannot help but feel that India lost the Karachi Test even before a single ball was bowled. The men in their team whose job it is to put t...

I cannot help but feel that India lost the Karachi Test even before a single ball was bowled. The men in their team whose job it is to put the runs on the board saw the wicket and decided that they weren8217;t going to succeed on it.

The negativity of the Indian batsmen was evident in both innings, as they chose not to use their feet and allowed the Pakistani bowlers to get them out.

You can8217;t score runs in Test cricket if you 8216;wait8217; for them rather than 8216;score8217; them. I wouldn8217;t have minded India losing by lunch or tea-time on the fifth day, but to lose 10 wickets in less than 60 overs was deplorable.

Laxman looked out of sorts and Sehwag, I am sorry to say, looked frightened. It is all right to bang the ball around on featherbeds, but the truest test of your cricketing ability comes on tracks that offer some assistance to the quick bowlers. Sehwag failed on that count. In fact, Sourav Ganguly did pretty well in both innings and should have gone on to get a bigger score.

The Indian think-tank should be disturbed by the number of 8216;bowleds8217; in the match. When you get bowled through the gate, with the ball going between bat and pad, it means that you aren8217;t getting your bat in front of your pad. It also means that you are hopelessly out of practice.

I advocated some methods during my tenure as coach of the Pakistani team which, I am proud to say, are still being used. One such method is batting on a slope to try and simulate fast bowling at ninety miles an hour. Did the Indians prepare themselves adequately by facing a bowling machine programmed to hurl the ball at high speeds before arriving in Pakistan? I doubt it.

On the other hand, the Pakistani batsmen displayed better footwork and zeal to fight their way back into the match after a poor start. Kamran Akmal was outstanding in the first innings, and he must have been delighted with the performance of the top order in the second innings.

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Salman Butt and Imran Farhat were determined to cement their places in the side, and the seniors Younis Khan, Mohammed Yousuf and Shahid Afridi were eager to take on the responsibility of taking the team to an unassailable total.

Faisal Iqbal has been knocking on the doors of the national side for quite some time now, and he made the most of the opportunity that he got as a result of Inzamam8217;s injury. Abdul Razzaq was impressive with both bat and ball.

Shoaib Akhtar was hostile, Mohammed Asif was excellent and Kaneria bowled well on the fourth day.

The point I am trying to make is that every member of the Pakistani team played with a particular goal in mind. You can excel in cricket, or for that matter in any field, only if you have a target, an objective. One has to say that the Indians did not seem to have any goal. They just gave up. I don8217;t think the Indian dressing-room is a particularly harmonious place at the moment.

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Pakistan deserve all the accolades for coming back from a disastrous 39-6 to win the Test match. Well done, Inzamam, Younis and Co!

PMG