Well begun is half done

I once asked Inzamam-ul-Haq if he was ever nervous entering a cricket field. “I thought other people get nervous when I enter a field,” countered the Pakistan skipper matter-of-factly. Inzy’s droll sense of humour is often lost (or misunderstood) because he does not speak the Queen’s English, but that’s what keeps him going, I suspect, in the game, and especially in the maddening world of Pakistan cricket.

Yet, did Inzy look a tad tentative when he went out to toss with Brian Lara on Tuesday? Usually, he is either inscrutable or phlegmatic - unless, of course, he is provoked into answering queries about Shoaib Akhtar’s fitness, or return to the team. But I detected a crease of worry on his Saharan forehead, though he had called correctly.

In a sense, is understandable. He is pushing 37, he has been under pressure in recent months, he is certainly playing his last World Cup — and this was the first match of the tournament.

I write this during the lunch break in Jamaica, so the outcome of the game is unknown. This is also a long-drawn tournament, so what happens on the first few days may not have too much bearing on the last few. And yet, the opening match of a World Cup has its importance which sometimes goes beyond the mere academic.

In 2003, for instance, West Indies beat hosts South Africa by three runs in a humdinger and the tempo was set for a tournament that was spectacular and sensational by turn, though Shaun Pollock would disagree. He was captaining South Africa in that World Cup, and not for a day after the tournament was over. Following that first game setback, Pollock’s highly-fancied side (everybody predicted they would in the World Cup) slumped into mediocrity, and that was that. His team was knocked out of the tournament prematurely, and Pollock lost his captaincy. Life can be cruel even to great players.

In contrast, when Kapil Dev’s unfancied side went to Old Trafford to play their first game of the 1983 World Cup, everybody thought they would be thrashed by the West Indies. Clive Lloyd’s side was the best in the world, India were, in most circumstances involving one-day cricket, hapless. But over a two-day game, India pulled off an unexpected win which went largely unnoticed at that point in time, but played a huge part in their ultimately winning the title.

Neither of these two examples establishes a firm pattern that stands the scrutiny of statistical or historical analysis. Teams can begin well and fizzle out, or vice versa. But how the first game pans out can set the tenor and tempo for a tournament. On the evidence of the first few hours of the first match, the eight World Cup looks like it will live up to its promise. It might not have too many high-scoring matches perhaps, but the excitement will be no less for that.