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da bwin： Amit Varma and Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in Bangalore28-Mar-2005Shahid Afridi ran, ran, ran, ran, ran towards square leg and punchedthe air with a divine joy and turned around, and then they fell ontohim, one by one, a swarm of Pakistanis homing in on happiness. SachinTendulkar had played a ball from Afridi, just short-of-a-length,to Asim Kamal at short leg, and Kamal, who had dropped himearlier, held on. And then he watched Afridi run past him, and keep onrunning. What could stop them now? (AV)The million-dollar miss
Throughout the series, Pakistan’s fielders have been culpable ofcostly misses, but the biggest catch arrived moments before the teabreak. As India waged a grim battle, Mohammad Sami, who was shaping theball away from the bat, unleashed the surprise short one at SachinTendulkar. Tendulkar fended without any sort of control and the ballbegan its loopy trajectory left of the short-leg fielder, Asim Kamal.Kamal palmed it further away from him, juggled a couple of more timesand as if overwhelmed by the occasion, groped in the air as the ballfell to the ground. Sami dropped to his knees immediately, Kamalrealised the magnitude of the error and dropped too. Four Pakistanfielders had their hands on their heads, Kamran Akmal covered his face withhis gloves and Inzamam-ul-Haq went down in slow motion to apostion of . Eleven heads reeled in the centre as about25,000 around them danced with relief. (SV)Captain falling
When Sourav Ganguly came out to bat, sections of the crowd shouted,”We want Karthik, we want Karthik”. Less creative sections just booed.It was sad: such a fine batsman in his prime, perhaps the best captainIndia has ever had, now reduced to a poor parody of his formerself. He pottered around for a while, then tried to drive a ball fromShahid Afridi that pitched wide outside off, and missed. The ball cameinto him viciously, and bowled him. As the fielders celebrated,Ganguly stood around wondering what had happened, unable to fathomthat he was out, thinking perhaps that it was a stumping attempt andhis foot was in the crease, or that the ball had rebounded from KamranAkmal’s pads. He had been down for a while; and now the umpire saidthat he was out. He walked off; was it for the last time in a Testmatch? The crowd didn’t care. They booed him. (AV)The mesmeric opening
The roar over Sachin Tendulkar’s entry had hardly died down as hefaced up to Mohammad Sami’s steaming deliveries, but off the third ballhe faced, a full-length one on middle stump, he stirred some old memories. Front foot slightly forward, perfectly in position, bat thrustout just at the right moment, making perfect contact, summoning the force to drive it straight, managing the angle to beat the bowler … and thwack. Sami’s right hand extended desperately,the mid-on fielder simultaneously looked left, the ball had meanwhilecovered three-fourth the distance to the fence, the crowd had gonebonkers and several nostalgic chords sprung up within. (SV)Anything is possible
VVS Laxman had said yesterday, “The way [Virender] Sehwag plays, anything is possible.” Well, Sehwag was 38 off 53 balls, playing with controlled aggression, when Danish Kaneria bowled to Gautam Gambhir. Gambhir pushed it to mid-on, Sehwag casually backed down the pitch, Abdul Razzaq raced to the ball, Sehwag turned, Razzaq threw, and leather hit timber. Sehwag didn’t even have time to try to get back, he just walked to the crease and past it to the pavilion. Razzaqwindmilled his arms, and Inzamam-ul-Haq came, a wide smile painted on his face, and lifted him up.And then Rahul Dravid walked in. (AV)
