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A tradition of batsmanship, and a bare batting cupboard

It might be impossible to say with any certainty how much Pakistan and India have in common



India's bowlers cruelly exposed the limitations of several Pakistani batsmen © Getty Images
It might be impossible to say with any certainty how much Pakistan and India have in common. But of two things, at least, we can be certain; we share a common history and we definitely don't share a tradition of great batsmanship. No, that has been the reserve almost exclusively of India.
The story of Indian batting and its feats has the wealth and richness of millionaires, as the recently published list of the top 25 Indian innings in Wisden Asia Cricket testifies. Indians have heartily feasted on the likes of Vijay Merchant, Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad, Gundappa Vishwanath, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid; the list is long. Pakistanis have been starved by comparison, paupers almost, learning to savour Hanif Mohammad, Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Salim Malik, Inzamam-ul-Haq and intermittently, the likes of Majid Khan, Asif Iqbal and Yousuf Youhana; the list is compact.
Why has this been the case? The reasons are possibly too long and complex to investigate here and now. Is it the pitches they play on? Is it a lack of proper coaching? Do they play too much one-day cricket? May be growing up on tape-ball cricket has been detrimental, maybe not. More than likely it is a combination of all these factors.
Whatever the reasons, this much is true: that arguably, the Indian batting has never been richer than over the last 15 years, and conversely, Pakistan's batting has been at its poorest in that time. The contrast has never been starker than in this match. Where India has had the audacity of Sehwag, the resoluteness of Dravid, the sheer aura of Tendulkar and the wispy genius of Laxman, Pakistan has instead leaned heavily on the old firm Inzamam and Youhana.
Their 139-run partnership for the fourth wicket was their eighth century partnership together and was an indication of how well they complement each other. Youhana is less imposing not just physically but in his batting. He hunts gaps, he runs hard, he is stealthy, more accommodating to the bowling, likelier to hurt you with style rather than brute force. Inzamam dominates the bowling, it is possibly the only time he forces his personality on the game, as he did when depositing Kumble back over his head this afternoon and creaming Balaji for three boundaries early in his innings.
But of their eight century partnerships, only four have resulted in wins and Mohali is likely to result in a third loss. That is the most damning indication of how weak Pakistan's batting has been over the last decade, encapsulated perfectly in this match in the dismissals of Salman Butt and Younis Khan. Quite simply, they defied belief. Can any batsman at this level - or indeed any level - be prone to such gross and basic errors in judgement in technique? If Butt can plead, albeit sheepishly, inexperience for leaving his bat hanging, what explanation can Younis offer for his error? And who can Pakistan rely on to replace them? The likes of Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed, Imran Nazir don't inspire confidence, they only further an already long and inglorious tradition of deficient upper order batsmen.


L Balaji once again stepped up and delivered © Getty Images
That they failed on what still seems an ideal pitch for batting against a committed if not destructive Indian attack is only more exasperating. In spells, Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan threatened, but they struggled to sustain it. Kumble troubled Inzamam, as he always does, with his skiddish pace and he provided the crucial breakthroughs. But it was the unassuming, unlikely and increasingly impressive Balaji who, as he had on the first day, stole the honours. Balaji was a popular figure on the tour to Pakistan last year. An ever-present, glowing smile and no little batting bravado - Shoaib Akhtar remembers it well - ensured that.
But that shouldn't mask considerable skill in his primary occupation as a bowler. He showed in Rawalpindi on that tour the swing and seam movement he can get when conditions are helpful and he has revealed here an ability to do so even when they aren't. The ball to dismiss Kamal illustrated his strength: exemplary seam and a length full enough to find swing. At one stage in the afternoon, he even found some extravagant reverse swing. Importantly, his action, which curiously developed a passing resemblance to Javagal Srinath's for a time after the Pakistan tour, is now his own again; high and front-on preceded by an easy, languid run-up.
He has brutally exposed the inadequacies of Pakistani batsmen, thus joining a burgeoning list of distinguished and the not-so-distinguished bowlers to have done so in recent years.