India's aspirations of winning the first Test died a slow death on the final day at Mohali as Pakistan surprised the hosts with a late resurgence.
Springing surprises is a natural trait in Pakistan cricket and this series, I am confident, will witness a few more like it.
Fighting from the depth of the sea, Pakistan has scripted a whole new story of courageous fighting. The final day's cricket once again reiterated that fact that players shouldering responsibility under pressure mature rapidly and reap rich rewards.
Kamran Akmal's exploits have given a new dimension to his career and perhaps he has finally realised his full potential. The matured display by Akmal also showed that he is capable of matching the newly defined wicketkeeper batman's role played by the likes of Adam Gilchrist and Alec Stewart.
In the current context of the game, the wicketkeeper-batman's role has become extremely pivotal in tilting the balance of the team either towards the bowlers or the batsmen.
Abdul Razzaq's knock in the second innings was important not only for his team but also for his own survival. Though he dismissed Sachin Tendulkar and delayed the little master's world record, it appeared that Razzaq has lost considerable amount of pace and penetrative skills. This was a partnership that would raise the spirits of the Pakistan batsmen for the rest of the series.
To talk and discuss about how India could have won the game would be a never-ending debate. It could be about how the skipper marshalled his recourses on the final day, or about dropped catches and the absence of Harbhajan Singh. But in the end, it was the heroics of Razzaq and Akmal which denied hosts the victory.
Skipper Sourav Ganguly could not have asked for a better start to the series. He won the toss; the bowlers delivered instantaneously and batting could not have been any better.
Virender Sehwag has been redefining the role of an opener in Test matches. It appears that he is bridging the gap between the one-dayers and Test matches as we see no big difference in his approach towards both formats of the game. Not many openers have taken on the opponents with such brutality. Sachin will have to wait for some more days to rewrite history.
It was a rare but a great sight to see three fast bowlers operating for India on home soil. Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan bowled well enough but this Test belonged to Laxmipathy Balaji. His five-wicket haul did strengthen the decision of the team management to leave out Harbhajan, arguably the world's best off-spinner.
Balaji bowled impeccably throughout the innings. His hunger to regain the lost position in the team was evident in every stride of his. Any bowler coming out of a serious injury would have been gravely concerned over the outcome of his first game.
Balaji's steady and progressive acceleration of the run up to the stumps has reduced the late surge at the delivery stage. I can recall his recent work outs at the MRF pace foundation where he was mainly made to concentrate on using his run up effectively to benefit maximum at the delivery stride. The near match-wining performance by Balaji has made him learn the way out of an injury.
One of the hard lessons of fast bowling is to make a successful comeback after an injury. Balaji has done it to perfection.
I was baffled to read Wasim Akram's column which said that I had trained Balaji to copy my action and hence he suffered an injury. I don't want to believe Wasim really said it, as I am confident that a responsible cricketer like Wasim would never make such an assumption.
