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An intriguing contest: Indian batsmen against Pakistan bowlers

Nandita Sridhar

Durban: India vs Pakistan exists in a parallel universe, free from the drear of irrelevance. Even a Twenty20 World Championships Group match is not to be spared of the highly polarised interest.

Salman Butt said: “It (India vs Pakistan) is the biggest of all matches. The boys have a chance to make a name for themselves by doing well. It brings out the best in them,” he said.

India will take on Pakistan in its Group D encounter on Friday with everything that elevates the significance of their Test and one-day encounters compressed into this bang-a-second format. Even if they want to, and even if they might claim to, they cannot afford the luxury of treating this as any other match.

From a cricketing perspective, this could be an intriguing contest between India’s beefier batting against the traditionally strong Pakistani bowling, even without Shoaib Akhtar.

With Durban seeing rain since Thursday, massive scores, like what was seen at the Wanderers, might not be possible at the Kingsmead. The wicket here is less conducive for easy stroke-making when compared to a dry Wanderers pitch.

“The bounce here is more like a tennis ball bounce. We have to make the necessary adjustments,” said Butt.

Umar Gul was quick and effective against Scotland and got the breakthroughs upfront.

Where Pakistan scores over India is in the relative Twenty20 experience of its core members. The domestic Twenty20 league is, surprisingly by Pakistani standards, more settled than India’s, with the likes of captain Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Asif and Imran Nazir having won matches for their domestic squads.

Shahid Afridi the bowler proved to be more of a headache for the Scots than his destructive abilities with the bat. Afridi loves the sight of an Indian bowler in any version of the game, as does Younis Khan, and tends to heave the ball with a lot more relish.Indian captain M.S. Dhoni spoke of his preference to bat first.

The Indian team’s self destructive abilities are mild when compared to Pakistan’s. Pakistan will miss Akhtar’s ability to intimidate, and if India can survive Gul and Mohammed Asif, the batting is strong enough to handle the others.

The conditions have assumed importance after the rain, which could determine the final composition of the team. Both teams know that for the millions back home, this is the big one.

The teams: India: M.S. Dhoni (captain), Ajit Agarkar, Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Joginder Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, R.P. Singh, Yuvraj Singh, S. Sreesanth and Robin Uthappa.

Pakistan: Shoaib Malik (captain), Imran Nazir, Salman Butt, Younis Khan, Kamran Akmal, Shahid Afridi, Misbah ul Haq, Yasir Arafat, Iftikhar Anjum, Mohammad Asif, Umer Gul, Fawad Alam, Mihammed Hafeez, Abdur Rehman and Sohail Tanvir

Umpires: Billy Doctrove and Simon Taufel. Third umpire: Steve Davis. Fourth umpire: Brian Jerling. Match referee: Mike Proctor

Match starts at 9.30 p.m. IST

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