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July 03, 2007

A battle for a noble cause and that is what this India-Pakistan Only ODI at Glasgow going to be. But for the battle to even get a start the weather holds the key most definitely. This match is an official One Day International with the returns from it going to the Prince Charles' Charity. Glasgow has been in the news for a suspected Al Qaeda terror attack on the airport a couple of days back. However, that is not enough to prevent this highly explosive battle at the Clydesdale Cricket Club Ground. With Prince Charles also attending the match, the security has been of the highest order leaving only rain as the villain for this contest.

Going into this match, the Indian team will be in high spirits having defeated South Africa for the first time in an overseas series. The batting has come along very well with the big guns firing and the youngsters prevailing in the finishing act. But Pakistan find themselves completely alien to these conditions, their warm up game against hosts Scotland which also has the ODI Status was ruined by heavy rain at Edinburgh. They did have an opportunity to practice for a couple of days at Glasgow before they headed to Edinburgh. The problem for Pakistan is that their batsmen will find it tough against the moving ball. Their history suggest that they struggle when the ball is seaming or swinging, the best example is the World Cup match against Ireland in Kingston where their batting fell apart.

The Indian batting is completely different compared to their counterparts. They are blessed with better technique and experience compared to the Pakistani side. The Indian batting has the solidity in the form of Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid to tackle any difficult bowling conditions. India's finisher Yuvraj Singh is slightly doubtful to play as he had picked up a groin injury during the 3rd ODI agains South Africa at Belfast day before yesterday. Coming to the Pakistan side, their strength will be the new ball bowling which is most likely to be handled by the dangerous Mohammad Asif and the comeback man, the world's fastest bowler - Shoaib Akhtar. The Pakistani attack will have a much better variety compared to the South African one that the Indians had faced.

The conditions at Glasgow is expected to suit the pacers, so batting in the old conventional way will be the ideal method. The team that is batting first will look to see the new ball off, keep wickets in hand and go full throttle from the 35 overs onwards. Having said that, we never know as this match could be a curtailed one. If it is going to be a 20 overs game then the likes of Afridi, Dhoni will definitely be the biggest players. Whatever it might be, the opening bowlers if they can bowl in the right areas, then batting will be indeed difficult. For now the pressure is on Shoaib Malik as he is up against India for the first time as a Captain! It is almost a sold out at this ground but the number what everyone's talking about is just around 5000 which is nothing for the players who are used to playing infront of hostile crowds back home or at Sharjah! So the players will get to concentrate solely on their game.

Before ending, we at CricketFundas.com are pleased to bring you the Live Ball by Ball Simulation of this match which can be found at the url - http://www.cricketfundas.com/livescores.html. There will also be running audio commentary for this game from us.

India : Rahul Dravid (Captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Wicket Keeper, Vice-Captain), Dinesh Karthik (Wicket Keeper), Piyush Chawla, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ishant Sharma and Ranadeb Bose

Pakistan :  Imran Nazir, Salman Butt (Vice-Captain), Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan, Kamran Akmal (Wicket Keeper), Shoaib Malik (Captain), Yasir Hameed, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Mohammad Sami, Umar Gul, Iftikhar Anjum, Mohammad Asif, Fawad Alam, Shoaib Akhtar

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