Pakistan's Cricket Tour of India, 2005
A preview by Amol Dongre
India-Pak tests have always been big draws - in more ways than one. Most of these tests have been dull draw games until '99. After that, strangely, the last six have been exciting games with results, three each. India had been winning against them very rarely and only in India until
last year when we won two. Otherwise it was as if our board arranged those tours for annual housekeeping after that- remove the players overstaying their form, change captains etc.
Series in the 1980s
I remember listening to radio news sometime in '83 after that disastrous Pak tour that Gavaskar was replaced by Kapil as India's captain and Gundappa Viswanath and Dilip Doshi were dropped from the team. That was when India had lost 0-3 to Pak in a six test series in Pak. Imran was the main tormentor, taking 40 wickets. "They have four such bowlers!", I remember a friend talking about the West Indies at that time because that new look India was to tour there next with all Windies players in their prime. Compared to what happened in Pak it wasn't all that bad in Windies. In fact India beat them in a one-day match and that has beenconsidered as something that gave them confidence for further success inthe World cup that followed. Mohinder Amarnath scored five centuries and another 90 at Barbados in these two series against some of the best fast bowling attacks of that time. Then he went on to become man of the match for the World cup semi final and final matches. So successful in Pakistan, West Indies and England, imagine what would he do to them when they toured India subsequently? He scored some 12 runs in 5 tests! Funnily enough, one major difference in Amarnath and Dravid would probably be that Dravid scores at home also. During this time Gavaskar was progressing steadily towards Bradman's mark with his customary centuries
in each series whether in form or not. We used to hear about him crossing Boycott, Sobers etc.
Mid-80's
That was the tour I remember the most. There were some very dull ones after that, once each in India and Pak. They used to say that the fear of losing would be so much that both captains would ensure they don't lose the game and play extremely safe. I remember that one match where allegedly wrong LBWs were given and in the second innings after India followed on, batsmen were asked to use the bat as much as possible to avoid LBWs. In that match on the last day Amarnath (back into his elements playing outside India) and Shastri survived nearly the whole day and saved the game. Apart from that the only things to remember were Anshuman Gaekwad's sleepy double century. Also the fact that Zaheer Abbas and Miandad couldn't quite register the same big scores in India as they were able to do in Pak while most of Indian batsmen were able to do it at both the places.
1987
Then Pak toured India in '87. Imran was fading by then and we saw Indian batsmen hitting him all the time. The overall tests followed the same old pattern until the last test at Bangalore. In Ahemadabad test we saw live when Gavaskar reached his 10,000th run. I still have the late cut
and rare celebration by Gavaskar in my mind. That time we were in college and right opposite our college, there was a TV shop and a tea stall next to each other. So you skip your lectures and have tea and free cricket along with it? That was some motivation to attend lectures. In fact for the last match -which turned out to be Gavaskar's last- they even put on the TV inside the office in college for all to see Gavaskar's innings. This was also the time when Pak had started total dominance over India in one-days after that match in Sharjah a little before this series. That went on nearly for a decade.
1989-90
When India went to Pak in '89, we had Sachin debuting. But except those fireworks in a festival game against all including Abdul Qadir, there wasn't much from him. We did have Manjrekar scoring a double in Lahoreand Sidhu also doing well. Waqar also debuted in this series but I don't
remember reading too much about him too. Srikkanth was probably the only captain until recently who took the team to Pak and didn't lose the test series. He did lose the one-day series though - and the captaincy, somewhat strangely. I later heard he lost his place because of some disputes and in came Azhar as the captain. One major picture in memory from that series is Akram leaving Srikkanth clueless and getting him out most of the times. Tendulkar had a duck in his first ODI (in fact first two), scored just 15 in his first test and has said he had wondered
whether he was good enough for international level!
1998-99
He was already being regarded as the world's best batsman when mutual test cricket resumed in '99 with a two test series. Everybody pretty much remembers the Chennai test where Tendulkar's 136 wasn't enough for an Indian win because the remaining four batsmen couldn't gather the remaining 17 runs after he got out. I think this incident suddenly changed Tendulkar from what he was in the whole of '98 to a more Gavaskar-like batsman and after that he has never quite looked like before, except a match or two. I think after that he realized that his is the most vital wicket an opposition can get and so he needs to preserve that. With that, and with the back pain surfacing, we saw a very subdued Tendulkar in the two tests that followed. Otherwise just some months before that series, Tendulkar had all supremacy on Pak at least in one days, like in the Dhaka Independence cup tournament. The Chennai defeat by 12 runs was followed by a win by 212 runs within a week when Kumble took all 10. The next test was as part of the Asian test championship and after restricting Pak to some 26/6 on the first day India somehow managed to lose that
test. This test was where Shoaib Akhtar had Dravid and Tendulkar bowled off successive deliveries and created some fear in Indian batsmen which carried off in the one-day series that followed, especially in Tendulkar's absence due to back problems.
Predictions for the upcoming one?
Of course, Shoaib has since been completely dominated by Indian batsmen, starting with the world cup '03 game and the 18-run over which included an upper-cut six followed by two boundaries, the second of which was a mere defensive push. Even in the 2004 Pak series Shoaib never quite had an upper hand once Sehwag took over. It was said that even Balaji hitting him for a six in whatever couple of balls he faced in the last ODI really demoralized Shoaib. It would have been very interesting to see how he responds on this tour, but he has already pulled out and we will have to wait for another one later. The victories at Multan and Pindi gave India its first test series win in Pak and that was after we had also won our first ODI series there. There is not much new to write about this series since it must be fresh on everybody's mind now.
So for the upcoming one, overall my prediction is a test series victory for India and ODI for Pakistan. I don't think Pak can run through the Indian batting twice and cheaply enough. Their batting will have to get really huge scores to put India under pressure. They will face a rejuvenated attack where most bowlers like Balaji, Pathan and Zaheer are coming fresh off long breaks, and unlike the bowlers of the last decade they will have no pressure bowling to Pak batting because they have been successful against them last year. Indian batsmen haven't had really good games so far in this season and they will surely look forward to set the record straight. Things could be more difficult in ODIs, if India can find that virtual fifth bowler which usually is a combination of 2-3 part timers who can hold the Pak middle order after the main bowlers have been taken off, that will be the key factor. In recent past that has been the problem especially against Pak since their middle order knows that and can plan their innings accordingly. On batsmen friendly picthes it will be harder for our bowlers to get enough wickets early to
apply pressure and even if they do that, that fifth bowler needs to sustain that. So unless Sehwag & Co bat them out of the game, one-days don't look very promising whereas test matches should be India's. When India toured there last year, they were going there after giving a scare to
Australia in the test series, and were fully charged to face Pakistan. When Pak comes around this time, they are coming off a 0-3 loss to Australia and it's not quite the same. So I think tests for India and ODI for Pakistan.
There are three tests and six one-day matches in this series, the first test starts March 8th at Mohali. Here is the cricinfo link to the schedule.
Summary of the third ODI New!
Summary of the first ODI in Kochi
Preview of the first ODI in Kochi
Summary of the three test series
Upcoming records for Pakistan's Tour of India 2005
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