A bird's eye view of the Lahore ODI

What better advertisement for Indo-Pak cricket than a thrilling one-day match at a major venue? The Lahore one-dayer on 13th Feb presented exactly that. Here are a few highlights of the thriller.

1. First things first. Both these 'medieval' teams of world cricket are upgrading their ground fielding in leaps and bounds. Their foreign coaches must be thanked for that. Catching under pressure, though, remains the same old worry across the two dressing rooms. Of the two, Pakistan are probably worse hit for this aspect. Indian medium pacers were ever dependent on catchers for majority of their dismissals while the recently retired Waqar and Wasim did most of their hunting for Pakistan through 'bowled' & 'lbw's.

India dropped 3 of the simpler chances offered by their rivals. Pakistanis, known to be generous hosts, returned the favour through their keeper and Asif. This was a throwback to another huge run chase at Dhaka in 1998 (record breaking at the time). Then India dropped 5 chances during the Pakistani innings, only to get them back one by one during their mammoth chase. Two of them were off successive Srinath skiers in the final over and contributed 4 of the 9 runs required for India to win.

2. Pakistan scored an amazing 130 runs in the last 17 odd overs. And they had lost six big wickets by the time this period started.

3. Younis Khan, the Chinese wall for Indian aspirations, came in to bat under real pressure after half the side was gone. Ever heard of China deputing foot soldiers to defend its wall? Imran Khan hardly believes the move actually saw the light of the day and summed up his thoughts with this: " If I were Younis I would have refused to play as part of that strategy and instead would ask the team management to include another bowler."

The most inspirational cricketer seen this side of the 2nd Great War sounded angry there. And yet all this indignation will have to disappear like an Afridi sixer if Pakistan bat first again next match under similar conditions, make 'Lala' Shahid take first strike against Irfan and end up with 110/1 on board at the first drinks interval. Rubbishing strategies is dicey work these days.

4. Rahul Dravid's irritable habit of attempting ill-judged singles is now a genuine concern for his team. There surely are better things about this opposite skipper to derive inspiration from! Even more alarming must be his growing lapses as the most reliable slip fieldsman India has to make do with. Captaincy obviously is affecting his catching. Maybe Dravid needs to get a quick chat from his model of captaincy Mark Taylor who remained an exceptional slip catcher throughout his days at office, good and bad alike.

5. Despite all the glory to be soaked in from Lahore, things still look ominous for Indian bowlers for the balance two matches. Reason: conceding a 288 run total even in a match where their spearhead and 5th bowler did very well and ALL the specialist bats of the opposition failed miserably. From another angle, it also speaks volumes about the supreme capitalising abilities of the exciting Pak all-rounders in these conditions.

6. Mohammad Asif keeps taking giant strides towards the hall of 'feared bowlers', those who do it by their skill at bowling various lengths and lines with a decisive nip off the seam. At Lahore he bowled a specialist opener (Gambhir) off a full delivery round his legs, then followed it up with a throater a few balls later that India's very decent and level-headed pinch hitter (Pathan) had no answer to. Yet he was never brought back until the dangermen of the opposition middle order have a few runs under their belts.

7. Yuvrah Singh started off at his fluent best in the Indian innings, reaching 45 off 41 balls in no time. However he scored just a little over 25% of the last 130 runs - a measure of that innings from Dhoni.

Parting shot: This was reportedly India's 11th successful run-chase in a row. Many of these were big totals. The increased rates and quantities of runs in either forms of the game is generally attributed to dearth of great bowlers today. Some of it may not be misplaced. Minus Shoaib, none of the trundlers on either side seems to be confident with either of the 'shock-balls' of one-dayers, yorker and bouncer. And they all bowl pretty ordinary slower balls.

People often overlook one important facet though. The batting and protective equipment have been upgraded to great levels of comfort for the batsmen while the bowlers have had much less cause for cheer. I believe we have a strong case to develop a cricket ball that swings bigger and / or has a seam that lasts longer. What is so wrong about taking a page out of football if it can make the game fairer?