It was a characteristically Pakistan chase, a strategy that Kenyans typically adopt while running a marathon — a little bit of aggression in the opening lap, then an easy trot in the middle stages, and then a late, powerful burst.Misbah-ul-Haq, after a threatening 49 off 44 balls, almost gave it back to Team India with yet another unsuccessful attempt of his patent shot, but Shahid Afridi stuck to his guns with 29 off 14 balls, as did Sohail Tanveer, to bring Pakistan level in this series with a ball to spare. The 322-run chase came to an end with a single, and then they enjoyed the fireworks.India allowed the highest ever successful run-chase against them — the previous best incidentally was also by Pakistan in 2005 when they reached 319 — with a convenient four wicket margin at the PCA Stadium. The two aspects that caused it were good calculative batting by the Pakistan middle order, particularly Younis Khan’s 117 from 110 balls, and the Indian team’s mistake of fiddling with a winning combination and taking away one half of the successful spin duo. Murali Kartik’s exclusion, even with the dew factor here, was an unwanted experiment as the fifth bowler’s responsibility shared 9-1 between Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, went for 66. And Pakistan were allowed to consolidate without an iota of uneasiness.Harbhajan Singh getting slight purchase from the wicket, Dhoni’s non-utilisation of Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh as bowlers, his failure to sense the danger ahead and playing along with Pakistan’s chase, not trying anything differently when his main bowlers looked pedestrian — all were disappointing.Younis’ first century against India, his third overall, couldn’t have come at a better time. Walking in at 38/1 after 5.3 overs, the Pakistan vice-captain took his time to gauge the in-swing of the left-arm pace trio, got rapped on the pads a few times early on but managed it all with a straight bat. He go the singles before opening out to hit nine boundaries and an array of dazzling strokes through the on-side, and particularly towards the fine-leg region with a few cheeky sweep shots. He also hit Ganguly for a six. Younis’ second six came off Harbhajan over long-on as he played the dominating partner through his 215 minute stay.While the Indian innings was based on the 173 runs between Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir, Pakistan’s chase included three good pairings involving Younis, who was lucky to be dropped on 74 by Yuvraj off Harbhajan. He first had a 43-run second wicket partnership with Salman Butt, who scored 37 in good time. Then with skipper Shoaib Malik when they contributed 69 from 59 balls and the biggest of them all with Misbah for the fifth wicket — 102 runs in 12.4 overs.The damaging effect of these partnerships and the inability of Indian bowlers to get a breakthrough were more telling than the wayward spells from Pakistan bowlers earlier on in the match.Pakistan new ball bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar and Umar Gul, and the pair who came in to replace them, Sohail Tanveer and Rao Iftikhar Anjum, were all guilty of getting carried away with the pace and bounce of the Mohali wicket.They dug in too short, more to derive artificial satisfaction of having the batsmen on their toes, rather than sticking to sensible line and length after Ganguly’s early dismissal. Pakistan attack conceded 31 wides, and a sizeable number included attempted bouncers, bouncing even over the wicketkeeper’s head and into the fence.Tendulkar, who was unfortunate not to have got his 42nd hundred and was caught behind on 99, along with Gautam Gambhir (57), benefited the most by simply sneaking in the singles and rotating the strike before the bounty of bad deliveries helped India gather up the boundaries.And then Team India, having travelled from a precarious 6/1 to 179/1 in 25.4 overs, then got into the power-hitting mode, regardless of lost wickets, to take them past the psychological 300 mark. Akhtar, despite picking up three wickets for his 42 in 10 overs, failed to impress with his bowling. He struggled with his line and bowled four wides in an over. His pathetic fielding added to his poor show.Harbhajan played a cameo towards the end with a few lusty hits off stock bowler Iftikhar to add lustre to Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh’s neat little contributions in the middle-order. Harbhajan’s unbeaten innings of 38 from 20 balls camouflaged a middle-order collapse, but in the end, the weak points peeped through. It’s a temptation to look at the batters, but India’s defeat today has to be squarely blamed on the bowlers.ScoreboardIndiaS Tendulkar c Akmal b Gul 99S Gangulyb Akhtar 6G Gambhir c Afridi b Gul 57V Sehwag b Afridi 25Y Singh c Gul b Tanvir 34MS Dhoni c Akmal b Akhtar 4R Uthappa lbw b Tanvir 0I Pathan c Yousuf b Akhtar 7H Singh not out 38Z Khan run out (Akmal) 9RP Singh not out 1Extras: (lb-7, nb-3, wd-31) 41Total: (for 9 wickets, in 50 overs) 321Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-179, 3-186, 4-239, 5-259, 6-260, 7-266, 8-278, 9-311.Bowling: S Akhtar 10-1-42-3, U Gul 10-2-56-2, S Tanvir 10-0-56-2, R Iftikhar 7-0-64-0, S Malik 3-0-31-0, S Afridi 10-0-65-1.PakistanS Butt b Pathan 37K Akmal c Yuvraj b RP Singh 13Y Khan b Zaheer 117M Yousuf st Dhoni b Harbhajan 12S Malik c Pathan b Harbhajan 25Misbah-ul-haq b RP Singh 49S Afridi not out 29S Tanvir not out 14Extras: (lb9, w16, nb1) 26Total: (for 6 wickets in 49.5 overs) 322Fall of wickets: 1-38, 2-81, 3-105, 4-174, 5-276, 6-283.Bowling: Zaheer 10-0-70-1, Rudra Pratap 10-0-59-2, Pathan 9.5-0-53-1, Ganguly 9-0-55-0, Harbhajan 10-0-65-2, Tendulkar 1-0-11-0.
