Sultans of Multan ... and Karachi beckons ... AGAIN

This series win for India is very significant. Most importantly because it had come on the back of an unexpected if not upsetting defeat in the test series. The vultures, the Gangulians and other species were once again looking to jump upon the opportunity to call for the head of the captain and the coach. In the scenario only an emphatic series win would have silenced these.

Twice now, in the last few months, I have found a victory significant more to defeat the enemy within than the opposition on the field. The first time it happened at Mumbai in December when Captain Courageous stood up to lead his team to a series-levelling victory after the vicous attack at the Eden and certain sections of the fans had left a very bad taste in the mouth. Today again it was the same enemy hidden in perhaps a slighly different and less-intense guise. Indeed it is a continuing legacy of Zimbabwe 2005 that is inadvertently bringing out the best in Team India, the team of Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell again and again.

Well, now coming to the match itself, this was by far the most convincing performance of the series. To bundle out a team for 161 and then get there with over 15 overs left is nothing short of comprehensive. India should be heartily congratulated for their splendid clinical effort. I do think the odd easy win like this is necessary just to give the players some breathing space, some time to relax. After all a match like Lahore does take a lot out of you physically and mentally, and even though Rawalpindi was relatively easier it was nowhere close to this dominating performance.

The bowlers deserve full credit. Pathan has been splendid throughout the series. So has Sreesanth. It is just that this time he got his due rewards. RP Singh once again got better results than his bowling deserved I think. He bowled some good balls but also bowled a lot of rubbish stuff in between. Maybe he is the kind of golden arm bowler than can just take a lot of wickets without necessarily bowling too well. If so he will last for another couple of years. That will still be good for India in the short term.

And in the batting my predicted Tendulkar failure came albeit a couple of matches too late. Indeed, the recent scores of Tendulkar make very interesting reading. Since his return from injury his scores have been
93, 67*, 2, 10, 19, 39, 2, 2, 2, 30, 100, 42, 95, 0

As can be seen in 14 innings 4 of them are over 67 (3 over 93 and even that 67 is a not out), 7 of them are below 19 and only 3 of them are in the more or less average range. A clear indication that he has trouble starting out, but once he gets set he is likely to make it count.

Anyway, just a diversion there. Coming back to the innings, the Dravid Yuvi partnership did most of the work yet again. Some of Yuvraj's strokeplay was as usual sparkling but the most pleasant surprise of the day came from Raina. Displaying a quality of strokeplay that reminded one of a positive mix of Sourav Ganguly (of yore) and Yuvraj Singh (of now) he took the team home to raise hopes of finding a long term middle order stroke maker with a mature head and an ability to finish off innings.

So we have won the series and now have some leeway to experiment a few things in Karachi. One thing I would definitely want to do is to bat first. See how good we are at defending (Rather, we know we are bad at defending, see if we can do something about it.) Then, we need to consider resting key players. Pathan and Tendulkar are the ones that come to mind immediately. But this might well be SRTs last ODI on Pak soil and he might want a last hurrah. So we could consider supersubbing him with Powar.

Just under 2 years ago Karachi saw a memorable day - a day that revived India Pakistan bilateral cricket in the grandest spirit possible that brought out not only the best cricket from either side but the best of human spirit and bonding and brotherhood on either side of the border. India was victorious that day. Today, we have come a long way with respect to our relations with Pak not just cricket-wise. Sure there have been hiccups, on and off the field. India's last visit to Karachi was particularly disastrous result. But let us hope that while we return to the city where it all started we definitely see some very good cricket played in great spirits. Of course it is difficult to live up to the phenomenon that occured in 2004 but at least an effort can be made. And from India's point of view, the result should be duplicated.

Cross posted on SachinTendulkarFans