Man Of The Day - Danish Kaneria

Clearly, the honour goes to this leg-spinner from Pakistan. He bowled 32 overs on the trot and although he has only 1 wicket to show for his efforts, the way he bowled and contained the vaunted Indian line-up was superb. It provided Pakistan with some outside hope of saving the match.

Besides, he also should have got Tendulkar on 8 - I had predicted that Tendulkar would score 8 in this innings - and although Tendulkar went on to score 94, I don't think it was a particularly great innnings at all. He started quite well, went on to score 50 off just 80 balls, he slowed down terribly in the second part - and with Ganguly all at sea, India lost all momentum. I don't know whether he was just eager to get to his record, or he has lost the abitlity to play a sustained brilliant innings or what, but it was simply not good enough. And note, that I am not singling out him here - lest the blind fans of the man pounce upon me with their heavy artillery - I think all 4 Indian batsmen were guilty of slow scoring to some degree or other. However, in the case of Dravid at least Sehwag was batting positively at the other end and Ganguly was downright incompetent.

If this trend continues, we might well have to look to include Yuvraj in the side in the not too distant future - because with one aggressor at the top of the order, we should have another at the bottom. Sadly, even VVS seems to be playing a restrained game these days.

This is the fourth time this has happened this season - after Chennai against Australia and Kanpur and Kolkata against South Africa. Sehwag giving the team a top start and then the Fab 4 wasting it by playing pretty ordinary cricket. S. Rajesh on Widesn Cricinfo highlights in explicit detail here how India's rate slows on Sehwag's departure.

Btw we can and should still win this match - but that is no justification for this sort of negative and unambitious batting. Clearly, the game plan seems to be to take a big lead - maybe 300 but I doubt it will be possible now that only the bowlers are left to support Laxman.

PS: In his quotes at the end of the day Sehwag says that the team plan was to play out the whole day to take a big lead. Well, blast the plan then - it has clearly not worked and it is not a very good plan at all.