If there was a winner other than the obvious it was, for the third straight match, the goodwill sought to be fostered by the series. The Tricolour was in evidence all over the ground, as were the Indian fans. Among them were six young NRIs who’d flown in from Dubai just for the Peshawar tie. Dressed in the Tri-colour, they mingled with the rest of the crowd with ease. ‘‘I enjoyed my day out and would love to make it for the rest of the series too’’, said Anuj Awasthi from UP. Was there any fear in his mind about Peshawar? ‘‘None whatsoever. I would love to come back to Peshawar’’, he said. Which is more than what Saurav Ganguly and his team will be saying. They lost the match, effectively, in the first few overs of the morning, when Pakistan’s pace attack finally lived up to its fearsome reputation. A remarkably controlled Shoaib Akhtar and a unplayable, if wayward, Shabbir Ahmed knocked the stuffing out of India’s top order to have the visitors reeling at 37 It would have been worse had several catches not been spilled; in truth, the fielders had no chance given the blinding speed at which the ball travelled to them. The worst sufferer was skipper Inzamam-ul Haq, who dropped Sehwag in the very first over. Then on, the crowd chanted the infamous Inzy moniker: ‘aloo’. It stopped briefly, then resumed when he dropped Laxman. But these offered momentary relief to an Indian team on a slide, and Yuvraj’s 65 and Balaji’s flurry at the tail only served to make the total respectable, not unassailable. Pakistan’s turn at the crease was similar to India’s with two differences. Local boy Yasir Hameed played a patient, innings-building knock of 98 to lend the solidity; and Abdul Razzak and Moin Khan guided the ship home, as they have so many times before.
