Playing For A Draw

I did not see any of the first day's play but figured from the reports that the pitch was a batting featherbed. Today however, the pitch did afford some help to the spinners with Harbhajan Singh getting some sharp turn. This could be a real tester for India's famed batting line-up with the talented Danesh Kaneria and the wily Arshad Khan bowling for the first time with a huge score to back them up. This is exactly what happens when you "make pitches for a draw". Clearly, if India had batted first, they would have been in a similar position as Pakistan find themselves in. That must have been the thinking - we have the lead let's make a pitch where we can't possibly lose - guess what, we are going to be under real pressure to save this match from here on.

Rahul, Saurav and VVS have a combined average of less than 45 at this venue, so SRT will have an oportunity to make a real difference to the fortunes of the team here by scoring a big one. This is the kind of situation where his recent liking for big slow hundreds might actually work to the advantage of the team. Then again - it might not - his 94 in Mohali was so painful it almost had a negative impact on the side. That was when India was trying to get in the ascendancy however.

When India were faced with 510 against South Africa in Kanpur earlier this year on a similarly pathetic batsman-friendly wicket, they responded pretty well with 466 - although it was the efforts of Sehwag mainly that helped them - and guess what his was a typical free-stroking innings - not a painful one. SRT scored 3 runs in some 20-odd balls. That time however South Africa had scored painfully slowly, so that a draw was very easy to obtain.

In Adelaide 2003, when faced with a similar total, (ah that grand grand test match !!) We actually managed to pull off a win thanks to the super efforts of Dravid and Laxman - SRT scored 1 - but then again Australia had scored too fast for their own good giving us enough time to win.

I would also ask you to try to reminisce Mohali 2003 against NZ, a match that tried to kill us (it is impossible to believe that someone could create a wicket like that just for the sake of creating it) when NZ humiliated us by enforcing a follow-on and almost pulled it off !! Again Sehwag 100, VVS 104* and 86*.

So there are instances when various batsmen have done the job in recent times.

Today Pakistan have scored at just the right rate. This match could go to the wire (and by that mean to decide whether we draw or lose). Sehwag has already made his intentions clear !! That's the spirit Veeru !!