Indians playing for heavy stakes

The marquee clash of the seventh Asia Cup looms ahead tomorrow. And the Indians are still licking the open wounds inflicted by Sanath and co. Skipper Sourav Ganguly looked distinctly downcast at the postmatch press conference last night and he had good reason to be. A thoroughly fragile Indian batting order was exposed for the paper tiger it was.

The bowling has no pretensions to being even that. The Indian 'attack' has been laid bare as a sheep in sheep's clothing and if Akram Khan and Naimur Rehman could feast on this offering, one shudders to think of the damage in store against the Pakistanis. When a considerate pressman dangled a rope before Ganguly, asking whether playing on three successive days had taken its toll, he refused to clamber to safety.

The 'no excuses' motif was the dominant strain in Ganguly's musings. Asked whether the bowling was too inexperienced to succeed at this level, an unforgiving Ganguly shot back that the other team also has got guys who are new in an obvious reference to Kausalya Weeraratne. Playing an extra bowler at the cost of a specialist wicketkeeper indicates the sorry level of confidence they inspire.

And Ganguly's tactic of playing Sunil Joshi as a specialist No.3 batsman was rather unintelligible. Shades of the persistent but unfortunate attempt to pitchfork Javagal Srinath into a similar role. Ganguly was non committal on whether Nayan Mongia would get a game after being flown in on Wednesday for Saba Karim. A terse "We'll see" was all he had to offer on the subject.

The Pakistanis on the other hand have plenty of missiles in the bowling department even in the absence of Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed. Any captain would give his eyeteeth for a formidable trio of bowling all rounders like Wasim Akram, Abdur Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood, back after a long injury time-out. The bowling depth has meant that someone like Mohammad Akram, competent enough to take a five wicket haul at the WACA, has been starved of opportunities all season. Their top order though was not in the best of nick in the West Indies but the return of a fresh and hungry Saeed Anwar should put an end to the starting hiccups. Inzamam-ul-Haq is in masterly touch at the moment and Yousuf Youhana struck a rich vein of form with back to back hundreds after a lean spell.

India seem to dug themselves into an inextricable hole and with Pakistan and Sri Lanka playing off in the last round robin fixture with all the attendant advantages, it is quite possible that even a win tomorrow will not be enough to book a place in the final. India's Net Run Rate now stands at -0.182 as opposed to Sri Lanka's decidedly healthier 1.828. The Asia Cup is one of the few competitions where India have dominated their subcontinental rivals in the past but that will count for nothing when the teams step into the petrifyingly hot and humid environs of the Bangabandhu National Stadium tomorrow.