The game was getting serious, and the involvement intense. Younis Khan had just scored a goal, and he celebrated in true soccer style —running past teammates and diving chest-on across the turf. Having lost the first Test in 32 minutes today, Pakistan had plenty of time to spare Monday morning to get in a game of football. But more than the sliding Steven Gerrard-like tackles they got into, the visitors have more serious issues to tackle on the cricket field.The chances of a comeback remain theoretically correct for the remaining games, but Pakistan lack two essential components without which, it’s near impossible to construct a victory on Indian soil. Few teams have ventured here in a Test without having two spinners in their playing XI; those who did, learned the lesson the hard way. The Pakistan skipper is still refusing to admit mistakes. “I have said it before, and saying it again. We didn’t lose because we didn’t have an extra spinner. We lost because we didn’t get those extra 100 runs in the second innings. I can spin, but every time I thought about coming to bowl, my regular bowlers got a breakthrough and I thought it fits that they continue to bowl,” explains Shoaib Malik. Call it over-confidence in the pace bowling attack line, or quite a brave defence to the blame game, but the utter disregard to the second spinner can be foolish. Malik should peep into the Indian camp. His counterpart Anil Kumble got the Man of the Match award with seven wickets in this match, and together the Kumble-Harbhajan Singh duo has accounted for half of the twenty wickets Pakistan lost. Malik’s claim that the frontline seamers came up with wickets at regular intervals seems flawed as well. Sample this: Danish Kaneria alone accounted for four hurriedly fallen wickets very late in the Indian first innings. Before that MS Dhoni and VVS Laxman put together 115 runs in 28.5 overs followed by Kumble’s stubborn stand for 18 further overs. Again, during the second innings, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly added 88 runs in 23.9 overs and strangely, Malik never thought it was time that he rolled his arm over. With the exception of Shoaib Akhtar, none of the Pakistan bowlers seemed penetrative, and the other two seamers Sohail Tanvir and Mohammad Sami conceded 224 out of 429 total India scored in this Test— neither playing the wicket-taking role or conserving runs. Pakistan would have also benefitted with the policy of a second spinner in keeping their over rates within acceptable limits. And if a scenario arrives where Pakistan have to enforce a follow-on, it’s unlikely they can claim it, considering the burden on their pace attack. However, Malik is partly right when he says batsmen ought to have scored more. “Younis and Yousuf has always performed for Pakistan and they are class players,” says Malik. The actual problem is that apart from the two, nobody else has really been contributing. When they fail, the team fails. The problem can also stem from the fact Pakistan has used 11 different opening combinations in recent past without settling on one. Coach Geoff Lawson didn’t hide the fact that his team failed during key moments of the game. “We didn’t play the key moments well. Our middle order didn’t do well. Actually, either team’s middle-order that performs the best throughout the series will win,” he says categorically. And herein lies the secret of Pakistan’s revival. They need more players in the middle-order to score, and an extra spinner in conditions like this to stop the opposition middle-order.
