Pakistan batsmen need a plan

There may be little for Pakistan to play for in Jaipur, apart from the clichéd pride and a morale-boosting win going into the first Test, but the touring batsmen will have to rally together to match a confident Indian line-up and avoid a 4-1 defeat in the one-day series.

Though Shoaib Malik blamed defeat in Gwalior on his opening bowlers failing to rein in a vintage Sachin Tendulkar, the initiative had been lost earlier in the day, when their batsmen failed to bat around Mohammad Yousuf, who was left stranded on 99.

Yousuf had a strike-rate of around 90 throughout his innings and formed substantial partnerships of 51 for the third wicket with Younis Khan, and 94 for the fifth wicket with Misbah-ul-Haq. Pakistan had another steady partnership when Malik added 78 for the second wicket with Younis but they didn't score 300 because the set batsmen got out precisely when it was time to accelerate.

Malik tried to up the ante and was bowled by Zaheer Khan. Yousuf joined Younis and began to efficiently anchor the innings. The ideal blueprint would have been for the batsmen at the other end to play the aggressor while Yousuf built his innings at a run-a-ball. However, both Younis and Misbah lost their wickets when the partnership was just lifting off the ground. Shahid Afridi's failure to fire also left Yousuf in a familiar dilemma; whether to risk his wicket trying to accelerate, or continue the anchor role and see Pakistan through to a reasonable total. As it turned out, Pakistan finished with 255, a difficult total to defend under normal, dewy conditions and impossible with Tendulkar on a rampage.

Gwalior wasn't the first time the batsmen failed to support Yousuf in the series. In the first game in Guwahati, Yousuf scored 82 off 88 balls on a sluggish pitch but received little support and, at Kanpur, Salman Butt batted nearly 47 overs for his hundred but Pakistan still fell short by 46 runs.

Treating the batting order like a pack of cards after each match hasn't helped either. Kamran Akmal opened in the first two games but was shunted to No. 7 and 8 in Kanpur and Mohali. Afridi was promoted to open in the third ODI after batting at No. 5 and 7 in the first two. He was pushed back to No. 5 in Gwalior while Malik put on the opener's boots after batting at No. 5 and 6 in the first three games.

It doesn't just sound chaotic. It was.

Butt has called for openers to be identified and persisted with but that ideology should apply to the rest of the order too. Making a policy change for a final one-day match of a series might seem like too much trouble ahead of the Test series but if Pakistan were to plot out a batting plan with more stability rather than flexibility, bordering on instability, they could perhaps take some positives out of this one-day series after all.

Their batsmen, free of pressure in Jaipur, playing clearly defined roles - the opener, the anchor, the aggressor, the finisher - while allowing for changes according to the match situation, might just bring out the chutzpah that's been sorely missed.

Things might not go according to plan, but you do need a plan.