Chennai Challenge

It would be a rash man who would predict the winner. Pakistan has a team with a mix of both talent and experience, but missing three front-line bowlers. Add the explosive power of Shaheed Afridi to Saeed Anwar, Ijaz Ahmed, Imzamam Ul-Haq and Salim Malik not to mention Rameez Raja and Moin Khan and you have a formidable batting line-up. It is against the Pakistani bowlers that India must cash in. Apart from Saqlain Mushtaq, none have really shown through although Aaqib Javed appears to be making a comeback. If India bat first, they must aim to make a very large total, much as they did in Bangalore, when the Pakistan innings wilted and Javed Miandad was unable to force the pace at the end.

 

The Indian team is not surprisingly showing signs of tiredness after an exhausting year. But application when it counts should still be expected of them and there is no reason to believe that they will not be able to produce it. Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh showed against Sri Lanka that they are the right men for the one-day game, scoring runs in good time when all but one of the top order had failed. They are both also excellent fielders something at which India has made tremendous progress, although the loss of Azharuddin is a blow. With Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly, there is no reason why India should not make or chase a large total. And Vinod Kambli can restore himself permanently to the side by making a century today. Abey Kuruvilla is currently the most impressive of Indias bowlers, though perhaps Venkatesh Prasad and Anil Kumble can fire themselves up one more time.

Though there has been plenty of good cricket already in this tournament, it should give the organisers pause for thought that any batsman who is out in the middle for any length of time shows signs of cramps. They cannot all have missed their breakfast, as knowledgeable commentators opined when Roshan Mahanama was carried off in the World Cup. It is hot out there. However, it is evident that one-day cricket is becoming more and more like baseball. Night games will become more common and countries will have larger squads of available players. In baseball, the best players are rotated night by night. A similar deliberate policy should probably be adopted in one-day cricket instead of waiting for players to fall by the wayside through injury or exhaustion. It would allow more players the chance to become their countrys heroes.