India-Pakisran encounter at kanpur- Green Park.

The Preview by wahabuddin-karachi
sunday,11-11-2007-6.30AM
3rd ODI between india and pakistan will be commenced at Kanpur .Kanpur is the place,where,before two and half years back,shahid Afridi took cricket to a different sphere. For about 75 minutes nothing else mattered but Afridi. His 37-ball hundred was not seen by many, so he scored one in 45 balls here in a match that not many miss: India v Pakistan. That hundred was his first in three years; he is yet to hit one since.The teams have arrived in Kanpur in a similar scenario as they did two years ago. Pakistan had come back then to level the series 2-2 before the Kanpur match. They are 1-1 now, but Pakistan have the momentum with them following possibly their greatest run chase, at Mohali. shoaib malik has led his team in high pressure situations at the Twenty20 world championship in South Africa and previous 2 ODIs that was an eye-opener for many.For starters, his handling of the bowlers has been very temperate. Many of his bowling changes have come at just the right time of which the Mohali game was a very good example. He learnt his lessons from the Guwahati game and made considerably better use of his fast bowlers. His patience was duly rewarded by speedster Umar Gul who took the prized wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir at Mohali.The way he marshaled the team,may award a victory inKANpur also.
The number of extras Pakistan bowled at Mohali has hit their pockets, and they must have been pretty close to losing their captain Shoaib Malik because of the slow over-rate. A specialist spinner can only help them with the over-rate and they are likely to bring back Abdur Rehman on a wicket that tends to be flat.
The Indians certainly missed a trick in Mohali, something they must rectify before the Kanpur match. A fifth bowler would have helped keep the Pakistanis in check.The visitors were well aware that the Indians were without a regular fifth bowler, which meant that even if just one of the main bowlers went off the track, the task would get that much easier. Indian Cricket Manager Lalchand Rajput said that the team management might decide to pick an extra bowler, most likely a spinner, based on the wicket. It would mean Murali Kartik could make it at the expense of Virender Sehwag or Robin Uthappa.
The news for the pace bowlers is that the wicket here wouldn’t be as conducive for stroke making as it was in Mohali, which retained its pace and bounce right through. Although the pacers profited from it, the batsmen, made better use of the conditions.The wicket in Kanpur has traditionally been on the lower and slower side, resulting in low scoring matches. Admitting that bounce has been a problem, curator Shiv Kumar said he was, however, expecting slightly better bounce this time, good enough to see the match throwing up a total in excess of the highest-ever total 259 on this ground.The nature of the track thus makes spinners’ role crucial and Dhoni would be more than happy to unleash his spin twins Harbhajan Singh and Murali Kartik. In all probability, Virender Sehwag would make way for Murali Kartik.