Little-known Asim Kamal and Inzamam-ul-Haq saved Pakistan from a batting embarrassment with gutsy half-centuries under pressure in the first Test against India yesterday.
Pakistan were tottering at 30-2 and then 191-6 after being sent to bat on a seamer-friendly track, but left-handed Kamal (91) and skipper Inzamam (57) came to their team's rescue with responsible knocks.
Pakistan were all out for 312 in their first innings just before the scheduled close on the opening day. India will bat today.
PHOTO: EPA
Kamal, who scored 99 on his Test debut against South Africa at Lahore two years ago, missed out on a century again when he was bowled by seamer Laxmipathi Balaji.
Balaji, out of Test cricket for nearly a year due to injury, made an impressive comeback with 5-76, his maiden five-wicket haul in six Tests.
India had seized the initiative in the first two sessions when they grabbed six wickets on a lively pitch, with fast bowlers Irfan Pathan and Balaji claiming two scalps apiece.
PHOTO: EPA
Kamal then launched a vigorous counter-attack to restore Pakistan's fortunes, smashing 14 fours in his fifth half-century in seven Tests.
The 28-year-old rallied his team with two useful stands, adding 52 for the fifth wicket with his captain and 48 for the seventh with Kamran Akmal (15).
Kamal offered one difficult chance on 79 when he drove leg-spinner Anil Kumble, but Venkatsai Laxman failed to latch on to the ball in the cover region.
Barring this lapse, Kamal batted with confidence against both pace and spin to hold the innings together.
Kamal was not the only batsman to apply himself well on a grassy pitch which had both pace and movement as Inzamam was the first to keep India's pace-oriented attack at bay with his fluent 37th half-century.
India had to rely on veteran Kumble to end Inzamam's flourish but failed to make short work of Pakistan's lower-order batting led by Kamal.
Kumble, the lone spinner in the side, trapped Inzamam leg-before and then accounted for Akmal to finish with 2-76.
Pakistan's early batting woes began against pace as Pathan and Balaji made the most of a seaming track to sustain their team's hopes of restricting the tourists to a modest total.
India skipper Sourav Ganguly's decision to put Pakistan in to bat produced the desired result as Pathan and Zaheer Khan shared the first two wickets to reduce the tourists to 30-2.
Balaji then removed well-set Taufeeq Umar (44), who inside-edged a delivery onto his stumps just before lunch.
Pakistan lost one more big wicket after the break when reliable Yousuf Youhana (6) fell to a soft dismissal, edging an away-going delivery from Pathan straight to wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik.
Playing their first Test series in India since 1999, Pakistan were off to a shaky start as Salman Butt and Younis Khan fell cheaply.
Pathan struck in his fourth over when he dismissed Butt (five), who was bowled off-stump playing across the line. Younis (nine) also did not last long, trapped leg-before by Zaheer with the one that nipped back.
Inzamam then steadied the innings with a 59-run stand for the third wicket with Umar.
Rousing welcome
For several years, Afsha Sajjad wanted to visit India, the country she had heard of through anecdotes and seen through its popular film industry.
Sajjad, a housewife from Lahore, finally got her wish on Monday when she crossed the border for Pakistan's first cricket series on Indian soil since 1999.
"It was my cherished dream to come and see India and finally it has been fulfilled. We were a bit nervous as we crossed the border but now I'm ecstatic," she said, adjusting the garland of marigolds she was given along with a rousing Indian welcome of drums and trumpets.
It has never been easy for ordinary Indians and Pakistanis to travel across the border as both nationals face a series of bureaucratic restrictions if they want to visit the other country.
Sajjad is among thousands of Pakistani fans who have descended on Chandigarh, in India's northern Punjab state bordering Pakistan, to watch the first Test that started in nearby Mohali yesterday.
The Indian government has issued 10,000 visas for Pakistani fans and the hosts are eager to match the hospitality given to them during last year's series in Pakistan.
Huge banners welcoming Pakistani fans lined the highway from the border city of Amritsar, with hundreds of locals greeting them at bus stops along the route.
Shakil Ashraf Butt, a businessman for Lahore, said the reception made him feel he had come from one house in his locality to another.
"I hope that soon a time will come when we will be able to visit each other without any passports or visas, that's the way it ought to be. We're here to make friends and brothers. We want to invite them back home to Lahore," he said.
India and Pakistan, divided along religious lines after the end of British rule in 1947, have fought three wars with each other, two of them over the disputed region of Kashmir.
Mirroring the tense political relations, cricketing ties between the countries have also seen ups and downs.
In 2000, the Indian government banned all bilateral series with Pakistan but the ban was lifted in late 2003 after a thaw in ties and the start of a shaky peace process.
Last year's trip -- the first full tour by an Indian team to Pakistan in over 14 years -- aroused feverish interest worldwide and was conducted amid enormous bonhomie with Indian fans overwhelmed by the warmth with which they were received.
In Chandigarh, leading cinema halls have offered free movie tickets to all Pakistanis. Others are specially screening films promoting love across the border.
Pakistani fans said the warm reception in India had dispelled all fears they had about coming to Mohali. Some of them joined welcoming Indians in the Bhangra, a traditional dance popular on both sides of the border.
ICC moves to Dubai
The International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed yesterday it would be quitting London's Lord's Cricket Ground, its home for 96 years, and relocating its main office to Dubai in August.
In a statement, cricket's world governing body said it would also be moving its financial center from Monaco to the United Arab Emirates capital.
ICC president Ehsan Mani said: "Over recent years the ICC has operated from split headquarters, with the cricket administrative and anti-corruption elements in London and the commercial and financial operations in Monaco.
"The Board has been committed to unifying its administration for some time and after considering a range of offers from around the world, the directors were of the view that Dubai provided the best way forward for the international game," Mani said.
"The package on offer to relocate the ICC to Dubai was very attractive and preparations are now in an advanced stage to move to the Emirate in August this year," he said.
Initially, the ICC will be located at Dubai Media City for two years before building and occupying its own premises in Dubai Sports City.
The move follows the ICC's decision to base its Global Cricket Academy at Dubai Sports City and sees the organization become the latest global sporting body to quit the UK, after athletics, rugby union and badminton among others, because of tax reasons.
Six other site options were discussed in June at the ICC's annual general meeting but on the eve of the vote UK Sport, Britain's national sports funding agency, at the behest of Lord's owners Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), intervened with a letter that stated the British government would be prepared to grant concessions.
However, when the budget statement was made, these were not mentioned and UK Sport subsequently wrote to the ICC to apologize after certain Cabinet members objected to granting special status.
Mani, an accountant by profession, said that while the ICC appreciated its links with the "home of cricket" where it has been based since its creation as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 with England, Australia and South Africa the original members, it could not ignore financial realities.
"Like many international governing bodies before us, it is clear that operating in the United Kingdom under the current system is not in the best interests of our members," he said.
The ICC's move will be seen as a further confirmation that Asia, where huge commercial and television deals based on the overwhelming popularity of cricket in the Indian sub-continent help finance the global game, is now at the hub of world cricket with the likes of England, where MCC ran the ICC until the late 1980s, no longer in charge.
Hopes that the ICC would remain at Lord's, in a modest office behind the stands at the Nursery End of the ground, were dealt a blow in December last year when Britain's sports minister Richard Caborn said he wanted to discuss the ongoing cricket crisis in Zimbabwe with the ICC "when they were next in town."
Mani replied at the time that Lord's had been the home of the ICC since its foundation.
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