Smashing Sehwag now showing in Kochi

As the heat and humidity mounted, the man at the center of it all, found yet another facet to his batting: of playing as the situation demanded. At the other end Rahul Dravid preferred to quietly walk for his singles even as India recovered from a precarious start that saw Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly return to the pavilion with just four on the board.

But by the end of the day this 201-run third-wicket alliance between Dravid and Sehwag that lasted for 33 overs helped the home team trounce Pakistan by 87 runs. Sehwag admitted later that the two had planned their partnership with the elements in mind and preferred to take easy singles without pushing themselves too much. Hence Sehwag-Dravid partnership was worth its weight in gold for even though India ended 30 runs short at 281-8 after being 205-1 after 35 overs.

‘‘We were tired by the 30th over. So we planned that we had to touch 200 by the 35th over and the just blast-off because of the conditions. Yuvraj (Singh) and (Mohammad) Kaif in the slog would have been very handy,’’ Sehwag later explained.

And later Pakistan captain Inzamam-Ul-Haq put up a brave face even while admitting that the weather was ‘‘tough’’ but refused to blame it for the defeat. The temperatures soared and reached 39 degrees and the humidity was pushing beyond 70 per cent as Sehwag and Dravid took regular breaks in their marathon alliance.

On the field too, Pakistan was hampered by cramps to Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Afridi. The heat also affected the pitch. With the sun beating down, it kept slowing down and shot making became very difficult. The Pakistanis who had fetched the ball for more than three hours were pretty tired by the time they came out to bat after lunch.

As Ganguly explained later this only made the job of defending easier as they were dealing with exhausted men. After that the pace bowlers struck early and reduced Pakistan from a confident 45-0 to 64-4. Pakistan never recovered from that stumble. Sachin Tendulkar, the bowler then stepped in and pitching the ball in the rough outside the leg-stump repeated his five-wicket haul against Australia seven years ago.

Incidentally this was India’s first win at home against Pakistan in a one-day match since the 1996 World Cup quarterfinal at Bangalore and also its first after four consecutive defeats to Pakistan.

Turning Point
Four blows before the Fiver
Sachin Tendulkar picked another five-wicket haul at Kochi as India thumped Pakistan by 87 runs. Yet what turned the match India’s way even before Tendulkar’s fiver was the damage caused by the Indian seamers at the top of the Pakistani order; picking up four wickets between the 7th and the 13th over. From 45/0 in the 7th over, Pakistan went on to lose four wickets in the next seven overs including the prize wicket of Yousuf Youhana for a duck. Of those four wickets that fell for just twenty runs, three fell for the addition of just four runs. L Balaji picked two, Zaheer Khan who was smashed for 21 runs in his first three overs came back to pick the wicket of Youhana while Nehra got the danger man Butt in his very first over.