Memories Of Greatest Cricketers - - #8 Shane Warne

[sivank]

The second Test match in Lahore was between Oct.27 and 1st Nov. After drawing the first Test Indians were confident that they carried the same team as they had for Faisalabad. Pak. made 2 changes Mudassar Nazar came in for Sadiq muhammed, Saleem Altaf the veteran seam bowler came in for the young sikandher Bakt. MM won the toss and opted for fielding. Where as Faisalabad was a dry dust bowl Lahore was a grassy pitch.

If Imran was fast in Faisalabad here was absolute unplayable. Bari was standing a good distance away from the stumps which was not normal in Sub continent. Even then he had to gather balls from Imran in front of his face as they were still climbing. Altaf who opened the bowling with Imran got rid of sunny as he went fishing out side the off stump. Imran and Sarfaraz were very severe to the Indian batsmen. Only Vengsarkar managed a score of 76 and the next highest was 20 by vishy and mohinder. Mohinder had to leave the field after being hit by an Imran bouncer. It was so sickening to see mohinder drooling after being hit. As the wickets were falling regularly mohinder came again and this time fell over the stumps as he tried to hit a bouncer from sarfaraz. kirmani helped a bit and with 28 runs in extra India made a total of 199. At the end of the day´s play pak were 28 for 1 after losing mudassar to kapil. Incidentally Sunny was the openeing partner of Kapil.

Wasim Bari who came as Nightwatchman and Majid made merry of Indian bowlers soon Zaheer joined the band wagon and after that it was only zaheer. All the others were silent spectators. Mushtaq dec. the pak innings at 539 for 6 with Zaheer 235 n.o. at the stroke of tea on the 3rd day with a lead of 340.

We couldn´t believe our eyes as we saw sunny and chetan playing such strokes that too at the end of the day´s play. With in no time India were 92 - 0 with sunny at 50 and chetan at 40. sunny cut, drove hooked Imran and sarfaraz as if they were slow medium bowlers. The fourth day was no different the opening pair went to build the then record opening stand of 192 as Javed was given the ball by mushtaq. He immediately got chetan out edging to Bari(WK) for 93. Chetan was not happy about the decision indicating that the ball brushed the pads. He had to go. The very next over Mushtaq got sunny out for 97 caught by sarfaraz at forward short leg. Again sunny was unhappy at the decision indicating that it was not from the bat. But he too had to go. Suddenly from 192 - 0 it is 202 -2. Surinder and Vishy started to build the innings slowly but steadily. At the end of day´s play India were a healthy 307 -3 after losing a dashing surinder for 60.

We were shocked about the dismissals of the opening pair. we couldn´t beleive that the umpires have decided like this. Sunny who had a bout with umpire Rana at the First Test was really a victim. Action replays showed very clearly that it was the pads at both case not the bat. Clearly wrong calls. Still vishy is at crease and middling the ball clearly. We were certain India would post a good total and draw this game as well. How wrong we were.

After a partnership of 70 runs Imran broke Kapils defence who went for 43 and again it was vishy and vengsarkar who was very slow in building the innings saw through lunch. The match was moving towards draw. Just an hour after the lunch, MM brought Mudassar into attack. Mudassar bowled Vishy for 83 and had veng. caught for 17. After that it was pretty down hill with a sick mohinder who was peppered with bouncers who mercifully got out for 7. Solely kirmani who sheltered the spinners made 39 n.o to give a lead of 126 leaving pak to score 127 in about 90 minutes.

The match which was supposed to be a draw was won by pakistan by losing 2 wickets.

We were shell shocked. We couldn´t believe that India lost. The test was ugly. MM was having trouble in containing Javed and Sarfaraz. The way how they menacingly ran towards umpire for the verdict as chetan and sunny were judjed out. To be fair Imran even though he bowled bouncers he never bowled bumpers as Sarfaraz did. Neither he had a grin as Mohinder was struck on the head. Infact it was Imran who was among the first who went to Mohinder who went down to the ground.