With two days to go, time running out for Pakistan

Today belonged to India. And Dravid constructed it brick by brick for them. As this Test series has swayed from visitors to hosts and back to visitors, the cricket has demanded excellence from anyone who would be victor. At Multan Virender Sehwag batted for more than a day to become India’s first triple centurion. On the so-called greentop at Lahore, Umar Gul produced one memorable spell and pocketed the match for Pakistan.

At Rawalpindi, Dravid has dipped into a plentiful pool of stamina, perseverance and application to neutralise the conditions and the opposition. He has brought India to a new juncture.

In notching up his third double hundred of the 2003-4 season, he has done much more than become the first Indian to score five double hundreds. In the past six months, the man once dismissed as the bridesmaid has not only won a Test in Australia for India, he has not just given India reason to believe tonight that this Test series is now theirs, he has actually ensured that the entire season has been theirs.

It was a tough day. The first half hour at the crease brought India just 12 runs. Dravid is a purist’s delight even in defence. He met Pakistan’s depleted bowling attack, with Shoaib Akhtar preferring to nurse his injuries off the field, with extreme respect, greeting Mohammad Sami’s uneven bounce and Danish Kaneria’s spin with perfect technique. And in between he played his trademark pulls and cover drives.

In this feat of endurance, he languished to the one false shot of the day — an attempt to reverse-sweep Imran Farhat that ended up played on to his stumps. There was a moment of hesitation earlier when he inside edged Kaneria, but got the benefit of a rather non-existent doubt. From the scorecard it would appear that only one team rose to the contest today. Yet, Pakistan’s bowlers toiled hard. Sami, almost a no-show for this Test given injury alarms, bowled 13 overs on the trot. Kaneria extracted turn from the track, though success may have come to him only with India’s tail.

Matches, however, must be mastered by all eleven men in the field. And Pakistan today missed both support bowlers and sharp fielders. The conditions can be blamed, with the day punctuated by one fielder after another trotting into the pavilion, Kaneria in fact with bleeding feet. But the conditions are the same for both teams, and in these days of non-stop cricket he who endures succeeds. John Wright said after the match that last night Dravid had extended sessions with the therapist, that his tendency to dehydrate was uppermost in the support staff’s minds. It has taken India a long while to appreciate Dravid’s contribution to their Test aspirations. He sticks around, he tap-taps away, interspersing classic defence with exquisite pulls and cover drives. He occupies the crease for extended periods, giving his mates at the other end an opportunity to plunder runs and latticing India’s innings with partnerships. In Rawalpindi he has three hundred-run partnerships, and a fifty-plus one with Yuvraj Singh.

In the past couple of years he has addressed every aspect of his game to deliver on occupation and accumulation. He has fine tuned his pre-match preparation, his imagining of the bowling attack to be faced, setting him up for a leap into the zone. He has worked on his shot selection, increasing his range of strokes as the innings progresses — cover drives, for instance, don’t begin too early in a Test match.

And he works out — Anil Kumble jokes that the first question Indian cricketers ask upon checking into a hotel is, where is the gym? Chances are, Dravid is the first one to actually wind up there.

If Pakistan appear to have played themselves out of the match, the reason must lie in the support programmes. Their talent pool is impressive. The real and present difference between the two sides lies in the harnessing of professional assistance. Tomorrow, the hosts face an uphill battle. They have the skills to bat out the day and more. Question is, do they have the resilience?