Wheel of fortune comes to a grinding halt

Shoaib had suggested that targeting Tendulkar would make for an easy gameplan. All he had to do was dig it in and bowl a fraction short and the ball would zip around Tendulkar’s ears. All very simple and so effective. As Virender Sehwag was to be part of this strategy, India would be under early pressure.

Such theory was soon plastered all over the boundary boards as Tendulkar and Sehwag helped themselves to what was the biggest humiliation the Rawalpindi Express has experienced. He rattled and creaked as he was worked around the sundrenched venue for eighteen runs. Little wonder Waqar was forced to remove him from the attack after the first over.

Little wonder, too, that the Pakistan bowling attack suffered acute embarrassment. After all, how often is a fast bowler with the reputation of delivering the fastest ball this century (time at 160.2 km/ph to England’s Nick Knight) likely to be pulled out of the attack after one over?

What emerged in those five minutes was that instead of targeting the Indian batsmen, Shoaib was himself targeted and in such a way it virtually destroyed Pakistan as an effective fighting unit. Waqar went for eleven in his first over and Wasim…Well, he was tidy, yet it was Tendulkar’s first scoring stroke that set the tone of the innings. A firm drive off the pads speared between point and cover gave the Pakistan bowlers the first signs of what they were about to face.

By his own admission Tendulkar felt a flowing confidence, bristling with a knowledge that little was going to stop him getting a century. There was an intellectual approach to his game which comes from insight and understanding the conditions and what can be produced under such circumstances.

By that stage the Pakistan bowling was under such pressure that little was going to alter the position. It also gives a bowler a hollow feeling when he knows he is about to be destroyed; there is little he can do about it when a batsman dominates the attack.

It seems more likely now that the feared Wasim and Waqar attack have delivered their last overs in South Africa for Pakistan. While India go on to the Super Six stage with Tendulkar’s form redeveloping, Pakistan find they are in the sort of trouble and failing to qualify for the second phase. For Pakistan, not ruling out the unpredictable of course, there is no miracle this time.