India-Pak contest reduced to a one-horse race

When the script follows a predictable path without any twists and turns, even the desired result tastes insipid. India, not for the first time in recent years, just romped home, delivering many knockout punches that left Pakistan wounded in body, mind, flesh and even the soul.

Advertisement

This was not an unexpected end to a rivalry which still draws a billion viewers, with advertisers and television channels shrieking hoarse to create a hysteria around the match with one sole aim, to fill its coffers. But for how long will the cricket market and sentiments fuelled by nationalism deceive the vast audiences buying into this false advertising blitz?

Pakistan’s descent into a cricketing abyss may be relished by the jingoistic Indian fans, but it leaves the sport poorer and its multiple stake-holders worried. It is hard to imagine today that Pakistan is a nation which produced the likes of Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul-Haq and many, many others. The reasons and diagnosis may not be for us here in India to find and address. But nothing stops us from expressing our concern that Pakistan should not go the West Indies way.

In sharp contrast to the timid, fearful and insecure Pakistan approach to the game stood the mighty Indian warriors. Has there been a fitter, leaner, meaner combatant than Virat Kohli in cricketing history? I doubt very much. At 36 years of age, sporting an all muscle and bone frame of five feet nine inches, Kohli runs like a terrier, focuses like a monk and his bottomless self-belief can shake even the mountains. He was battling a lack of form and yet produced an innings of chiselled discipline that left Pakistan bowlers confused and clueless.

If Kohli is all boundless energy, Shubman Gill is elegance personified. His movements have a grace, with strokes of pristine beauty, much like that of a ballet dancer, that take away the breath away of spectators. With Shreyas Iyer unleashing more muscle and power in his strokes than the Kohli-Gill combine, Pakistan had nowhere to hide. It didn’t matter that Rohit Sharma, more bulk than muscle, failed to get going.

India’s strength, apart from its fearsome batting, are the wicket conditions in Dubai that give them the freedom to use all three spinners as frontline bowlers. The low, slow track, where the ball grips the surface, even if it may not turn too much, has allowed the wrists of the bending, twisting Kuldeep Yadav to bemuse the batsmen. While the accuracy and speed variations of Ravindra Jadeja tie the batsmen in knots, Axar Patel gets enough purchase from the surface to complete what appears to be a deadly trio on a surface like this.

India’s sterner tests will come ahead in the tournament but they have the advantage of home-like conditions against teams who have been playing in perfect batting conditions of Lahore and Karachi. There is a big opportunity here which India are very much capable of captalising on.

— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’