da marjack bet： Plays of the day for the first ODI between India and Pakistan in Guwahati
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in Guwahati05-Nov-2007
Shoaib Akhtar set-up Tendulkar by changing his pace with every ball © AFP
Irony of the dayIt’s no secret that the sun sets early in Guwahati, one of theeastern-most cities in the country. Both captains spoke about thelight yesterday, the match referee had his views, and the umpireschipped in too. Walking towards the Nehru Stadium, early enough tocatch the 8 am toss, and you’re greeted by four light towers, onedraped with a poster of Sunny Deol, a Bollywood star. The grand ironyis they’re suitable only for football and other sports. No sunlight,no cricket.Paddle of the dayForty-sixth over, Mohammad Yousuf in fine nick, and Pakistan in needof quick runs. Irfan Pathan does his bit by keeping it full on middleand off but Yousuf, as if expecting just that, moves across the stumpsand brings out a sweet paddle-sweep past short fine leg. Pathan isn’ta spinner but, during this shot at least, was made to look like one.Manic charge of the dayThis was like a bull charging at a red rag. Sachin Tendulkar’s spinninglegbreaks were spinning big but Shahid Afridi decided to take him on anyway.It wasn’t a charge straight down but a diagonal one, giving himselfroom, trying to butcher it inside-out. Once Tendulkar saw himcoming he fired it in quicker outside off and Afridi stood no chance. Stumpingsusually don’t come easier.Set-up of the dayFaster, faster, fastest, slow. That’s the sequence that did Tendulkarin. After thunder-bolting his first eight deliveries, one of whichrocketed off Tendulkar’s leading edge to the third-man fence, Shoaib Akhtarslowed down the pace just a bit. Tendulkar, probably expecting yetanother screamer, was too early on his flick and was trapped on the kneeroll in front of the stumps. You could term it a slower ball but at143 kph it was faster than what RP Singh and Umar Gul clocked throughthe day. One man’s quicker one is another man’s floater.Double-edged sword of the dayThe first two balls of Shoaib’s fourth could have produced twowickets. Instead it ended in Shoaib kicking the ground in frustration.Gautam Gambhir poked away from his body, not once but twice, and nickedbetween Kamran Akmal and Younis Khan, at first slip. On the firstoccasion the gap was too large but even after the gap was bridged,Younis struggled to get his hands to the second chance. One slip but,two slips.Rahman scores”Two Abdur Rahman’s will play today. One in the field and one in thepress-box.” Veteran scorer Abdur Rahman, an offspinner in his time,kept reminding everyone that his namesake was playing for Pakistan.Rahman, who’s been scoring in various centres across the country since1964, claims to have watched 104 Tests and 106 ODIs. He turnedslightly glum when Rehman was run-out for a duck and shared a goodlaugh when he was tonked around later in the day. “Bad day for Rehmanthe bowler but a good day for Rahman the scorer,” he signed off afterannouncing his final spell.