Cricket Column: ‘Mauka’ for immortality for Sarfraz’s lesser mortals

Sports Saturday 17/June/2017 16:59 PM
By: Times News Service
Cricket Column: ‘Mauka’ for immortality for Sarfraz’s lesser mortals

From Sydney to Edgbaston, from 1992 to 2017, it has been an embarrassing history of unprecedented humiliation for Pakistan against India in ICC limited-overs matches. Though India enjoy an imperious 13-2 advantage over Pakistan as both teams meet up on Sunday within the space of a few days from their last encounter, this could well be the perfect “mauka” (opportunity) Pakistan needed to put the 25-year-long tragedy to rest and turn the page to a cheerful chapter.
As the 16th encounter between the two teams takes place at The Oval, what remains intact is the hype of the kind that makes even someone who has renounced every single worldly pleasure and desire run out of the monastery because he hasn’t got rid of the “sabse bada moh”: the desire to watch an Indo-Pak cricket match.
Sadly, much of the fun has been lost in transition: India have become almost invincible and Pakistan seem habituated to humiliation.
The first-ever encounter between the two teams in an ICC event happened in Sydney in the 1992 World Cup, which India won by 43 runs, and Pakistan had to wait until 2004 to register their first win to put the scoreline at 3-1. Their second victory came in 2009, and since then what we got to watch has been a total Indian domination that, by 2017 at Edgbaston, looks so complete that Pakistan seem resigned to the reality: no “mauka” for “moksha” (redemption).
Gone are the ingredients that spiced the encounters, such as the comic relief provided by spontaneous moments like the infamous leaps enacted by Javed Miandad in 1992 or the high drama unveiled by hero-to-zero moments like the Aamer Sohail-Venkatesh Prasad encounter in 1996.
Over the years, Pakistan have lost pace power to intimidate Indian batsmen or power hitters Indians should lose sleep over and, at the moment, there’s pretty little at their disposal to challenge the Indian might, except their ever-expanding unpredictability.
This, this lack of fearsome bowlers and awesome batsmen who indulged in ego trips, could well be Pakistan’s advantage on Sunday. They look like a bunch of ordinary, unheralded folks ready to make an impact and it’s this down-to-earth demeanor that we got to see in the match against England after what their coach termed as a couple of “ugly wins”.
Unfortunately, the bunch of ordinary boys is squaring up to a group of confident guys led by an extraordinary hero. Pakistan have played two finals against India in ICC events and lost both, and their chance of getting lucky the third time around depends on how quickly they could send Virat Kohli back to the dressing room. It doesn’t matter whether they are batting first or chasing a target, but what counts is the wicket of Kohli.
Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have been providing a perfect platform for India, but even when the openers put up a healthy total or even when they don’t, it’s Kohli at No. 3 who takes the game to the next stage.
Pakistan’s chance of getting India out, in case they are bowling first, to a total that is not intimidating rests with an early dismissal of Kohli, and it’s the same even if they are defending a total. With Kohli in the middle, the guys who give him company dare to discover their potential and come up with incredible stuff.
Unfortunately again, Pakistan’s chance of getting the Indian skipper out early looks tougher than ever. Kohli was still struggling to shake off his poor form in the June 4 match, but against South Africa he looked better and against Bangladesh he seemed to have got back into his rhythm.
He was out for zero chasing a wide delivery outside off stump in the match against Sri Lanka, and in the next game, against South Africa, he was appreciating himself after successfully executing a glide to the rope, something he tried and failed against Lanka. In the semifinal, he was getting everything right, despatching balls outside off stump — be that the fourth, fifth or sixth stump line — where he wanted to.
If there is something that bothers India, it’s the performance of Hardik Pandya as a bowler. He was taken out of attack in the games against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and Kohli and Kedar Jadhav stepped in to play the role of the fifth bowler. Pandya is a promising talent for India, but he need to curb his tendency to fire too many short balls. With a better discipline than he displayed against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the young all-rounder could repay the trust and confidence Kohli has in him.
Of the 15 previous opportunities Pakistan have had against India in the ICC limited-overs encounters, they were able to win just two. Their last victory was in 2009, and since then they have lost seven matches in a row. By that depressing count and uninspiring logic, they have nothing much to lose, but everything to gain. The bunch of lesser mortals led by Sarfraz Ahmed is just a win away from immortality.
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The writer is a freelance contributor based in India. All the views and opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of Times of Oman