After 24 years, India won the ODI series (3-2) at home against Pakistan. Yet for many like me who watched the series, it was not remotely as interesting, hard fought and nail biting matches that would typically happen in an India-Pakistan clash. While the series score line might read as 3-2, indicating a tough series, it was pretty much a walk-in-the park for the Indian team and the two loses show that India is far from molding a team able to perform with a good level of consistency.

Out of all the five matches, the fifth ODI was probably the only match where Pakistan was in total control of the game from the first ball bowled.

Even in the game where they chased down an incredible 321, they never looked in control, until the Indian bowlers bowled terribly at the death overs. Of course, you do have to give credit to the Pakistani batsmen, who hung in there playing sensibly and took the opportunity in punishing bad bowling towards the end to seal the win. But I do feel that the Indians threw away that game rather than making Pakistan earn it.

Mahindra Singh Dhoni & Yuvraj Singh – middle order beefing up

The captain and vice-captain have certainly led from the front and the new set of responsibilities which they have taken up has made them better players and is the biggest positive in this series. In three games, both of these players had over 100 runs partnership stands and controlled the match in the middle overs. Yuvraj made 272 runs in the series at an average of 68, only next to Mohammed Yousuf who made 283 runs at a brilliant average of 94.33. Dhoni is not far behind with 185 runs made at an average of 46.25.

Mohammed Yousuf – brilliant as ever but failed to make a big impact

Mohammed Yousuf continued his brilliant form once again picking up 283 runs at an unbelievable average of 94.33, with 3 fifties and a strike-rate of 87.61 which incredibly is better than that of Yuvraj and Dhoni. Yet, these figures at its naked best doesn’t really throw the real picture and I couldn’t more agree with the commentator Rameez Raja’s views that there were passages of selfish play between Yousuf and Younis, that resulted in the run rate slowing down and Pakistan actually failed to post bigger totals that could have been easily defended. The problem seen was his reluctance to take risks in stepping up the tempo and leaving it to the junior batsmen around him to take up that task, thus putting enormous pressure on the younger ones. He is without a doubt the best batsmen of the team and one of the most senior players in the squad and yet he gives the impression of only batting for himself. While this may be stated as an unfair criticism, but after those views were expressed on air, there was a noticeable change in the last ODI, where he was bit more aggressive and took the role of keeping up the tempo, in line with the team’s targets. This made an impact and Pakistan quite easily posted a 300 plus score and won without any real pressure but it was all too late.

Nevertheless, with the test series coming up, the Indian bowlers, as a matter of fact, most bowlers in the world, still don’t have a clue on how to get him out cheaply and he will be the key for Pakistan during any test match series.

On the bowling front

The prodigal son, Shoaib Akhtar was back and continued to impress with his antics, pace and ability to pick early wickets, which are crucial. There is no doubt about the fact that age has indeed caught up with him and one can see the visible change in his rather struggled run-up that he is putting in every thing he got with his aging body. Yet, it amazes me to still seeing him bowl consistently at the late 140’s kms. He certainly has lost a few yards of pace and is no longer able to rip an entire over at speeds over 150+kms as he used to do before. But nevertheless, even when he is unable to make that long fairy tale run-up, he is still very fast. Shoaib finished as the second highest wicket taker in the series with 7 wickets, 3/42 being his best.

The bowler of the tournament was Sohail Tanvir, with 8 wickets, 4/53 being his best. He has turned out to be a good find for Pakistan and could become an all-rounder in the making with his ability to bat well lower down the order.

Harbhajan Singh bowled very economically in this series, to restrict Pakistan to average scores.

New faces in the team

The last ODI gave both teams the opportunity to test their bench strength and the performances of the youngsters in both the teams were really heartening. Sarfraz Ahmed, Rohit Sharma and Fawad Alam were impressive.

Praveen kumar’s debut for India was also quite impressive and his figures may not tell you the real story. He bowled beautifully in the first spell and he ought to be given more chances in the future. The only problem which I perceive is that he is a swing bowler who will be effective only with the new ball. Once the ball gets old, he doesn’t have quite the pace to pose a serious threat to prevent the opposition from scoring. Its early days and he did quite bowl reasonably well at the death with mixed results. Let’s wish him the best for the future.

Sreesanth and RP Singh as usual sprayed the bowl all over the pitch but more crucially provided key breakthroughs and did the job for team India. Their ability to attack and pick up wickets is their strength which puts the opposition under pressure. However, they both need a lot of practice in bowling at a consistent line and length to avoid leaking away too many runs.

And finally, somebody from the Indian team please make Sreesanth understand that he has limited batting talent that can be nurtured into something good but please stop him from making an idiot of himself by trying to take the role of a heroic hitter to finish the match. When there is a batsman of some quality at the other end, it is common sense to rotate the strike and let that batsman attempt his luck in meeting probability. In a similar situation in an earlier series, while Dhoni was at the other end, Sreesanth was swatting flies with his bat instead of giving the strike to Dhoni. While we could all say that he has a good attitude of not giving up etc., but at the end of the day, there is a thick line between being heroic or plain stupid.

Sachin at his vintage best

And last, do I have to say this. Sachin through this series was at his vintage best and an absolute visual delight. The curse of the 90’s which he has inherited might only be the disappointment to an otherwise superb display of batting. All the young superstars from the Twenty20 fame has still lot of work to do in figuring out why they fail against the shining new ball quite often and this series could well give them the learning curve by watching Sachin.