da cassino： Danish Kaneria was easily the star of the day for Pakistan
On the Ball with S Rajesh and Arun Gopalakrishnan11-Mar-2005Danish Kaneria was easily the star of the day for Pakistan. On a day whenthe wicket had eased out and conditions were excellent for batting, hetirelessly sent down over after over with nagging accuracy and variation,never allowing any Indian batsman to dominate him. He bowled 34 overs in theday, and yet seldom gave away easy run-scoring opportunities.Of the 282 deliveries he has bowled in the innings so far, 217 have been ona good length that¹s nearly 77%. Especially impressive was the way hebowled to the left-handers Gautam Gambhir hit a few early on, but SouravGanguly, usually so dominant against spin, could only manage nine runs in 28deliveries against him. Kaneria also troubled the Indians far more than therest the not-in-control percentage against him was 25, which means onceevery four balls the Indian batsmen were beaten, rapped on the pads, oredged their strokes. Against the rest of the bowlers, that figure was lessthan 15%.India’s crawl
The momentum of the Indian innings fell, once again, with the departure ofVirender Sehwag. As long as he was around, runs came at more than four anover; when he left, it dropped to just a shade more than two.Sehwag wasinvolved in three century partnerships, but in two of those stands, hispartners scored at almost as good a rate as he did Gautam Gambhir scoredat a strike rate of 89 to Sehwag¹s 103 in the first-wicket stand of 113,while Sachin Tendulkar¹s strike rate of 63.95 was nearly as much as Sehwag¹s66.29 in their 118-run partnership. However, once Sehwag left, Tendulkar¹sstrike rate almost halved to 33.62, and, not surprisingly, the runs almostcompletely dried up for India.