Tendulkar made the big difference

It was quite simply a magnificent effort from Sachin Tendulkar at Gwalior on Thursday and that is all it took to make all the difference between the two teams.

He has been in supreme touch in the series already, and it was unfortunate that he missed out on a second hundred in three games. But that’s the way the game goes sometimes.

Pakistan simply had no answers to the assault Sachin launched. He was so beautifully balanced when he executed his strokes — and he hit shots to every part of the ground — it was a visual treat. Quite magnificent and a very elegant effort indeed.

I personally think the hundreds he has missed should not worry him too much. He has been around for too long to know that it’s only a matter of time.

Having said that, I must also point out that Pakistan made things difficult for themselves. When you bowl to a batsman of Sachin’s calibre, you simply have no margin for error, but the Pakistani bowlers just could not seem to get things right.

There is no way a captain can set fields to bad bowling and not one of the bowlers was really in control, except to some extent Umar Gul.

There were too many balls that were short and wide, and with the ball coming on to the bat early on, it helped Sachin get settled very quickly. It was not just the fast bowlers, even the spinners were simply awful, and they bowled all over the place.

Another glaring aspect of Pakistan’s approach that was quite noticeable was their lack of planning. 255 was not a bad score — though ideally another 20-odd runs would have helped — but the way the bowlers went about their job it seemed no thinking had gone into their lines and field positioning.

If a batsman is strong in a particular area, the idea should be to restrain him there. I saw no signs of any thought having been put into how to defend that score.

But then, if you have Tendulkar in such a murderous mood, few teams are capable of stopping him.

While both teams continue to be poor in the field, Pakistan have been specially lagging behind.

Overall, it has come as no surprise to me that Pakistan have lost a series in India for the first time in 24 years, after 1983. Like I said, they have been out-matched by the Indians in every department of the game, and I am pretty pessimistic now about what is to follow. (News Watch Asia)