Eight days is not long in the calendar, but in the emotional weather of a touring side it can feel like a season. Eight days after a consolation win in Australia — a victory that felt more like relief than resurrection — Pakistan found themselves again standing in borrowed light, this time under New Zealand skies. The question lingered unspoken: was Sydney a beginning, or merely an echo?
The answer arrived slowly, spun rather than struck, shaped by patience rather than force.
Pakistan began as they so often did in that era — beautifully, recklessly. Aamir Sohail and Ramiz Raja stitched together an opening partnership of 135 that seemed to quiet the ground, their bats working in gentle agreement, the ball softened, the bowlers disarmed. It was cricket played in balance, the kind that invites optimism.
Then, as if someone had leaned too heavily on the future, it collapsed.
From comfort came chaos. Ten wickets fell for 73 runs, the innings folding in on itself with the suddenness of a thought interrupted. Chris Cairns was the agent, his burst sharp and unrelenting — three wickets in 21 balls, three truths revealed in quick succession. Sohail, who had looked so settled, lost his balance and knocked over his own stumps for 88, undone not by deception but by the smallest misalignment. It felt symbolic. Control had been surrendered, and Pakistan were once again chasing themselves.
New Zealand batted with restraint, if not dominance. Craig Spearman, on debut, played with the enthusiasm of a man keen to leave a footprint — five fours, a six off Mushtaq Ahmed, a promise briefly illuminated before a top-spinner bent time just enough to deceive him. The hosts closed the first day three down, and when only Stephen Fleming fell early next morning, the Test tilted gently away from Pakistan.
There were moments when the game could have hardened beyond retrieval. Ramiz Raja dropped Chris Cairns at mid-on when he was on 30 — a simple chance, heavy with consequence. Cairns went on to make 76, adding 102 with Roger Twose, and for a while New Zealand batted as if they were laying permanent claim to the match. Then Wasim Akram intervened.
There are bowlers who operate within the game, and others who rearrange it. Wasim belonged to the latter. Once he separated Cairns and Twose, the resistance dissolved. The last six wickets fell for 65, Wasim carving through them with five for 14 in ten overs — a reminder that decline, in his case, was always exaggerated, always temporary.
New Zealand’s lead of 78 felt useful, not decisive. Pakistan understood this too. When they batted again, they did so as if chastened, as if something had been learned in the wreckage of the first innings. By the close of the second day they had moved 60 runs ahead with only one wicket lost, though Ramiz Raja was forced to retire hurt, the wrist stiff with pain and uncertainty.
What followed on the third day was not spectacular cricket, but something rarer: disciplined cricket. Pakistan batted through the entire day, hour by hour, minute by minute, refusing temptation. Ijaz Ahmed and Inzamam-ul-Haq shared a partnership of 140 that felt built not on flair but on mutual trust. Inzamam fell at slip, but the rhythm remained.
Ijaz, given life on 81 when Parore spilled a chance, turned reprieve into declaration. After lunch, he moved with a new certainty, stepping beyond the nervous nineties into his fourth Test hundred. It took almost five hours. It included 13 fours and two sixes. More importantly, it carried authority — the quiet authority of a man no longer asking permission.
Salim Malik steadied the middle, Ramiz Raja returned, bruised but unbowed, to craft another half-century. When Pakistan were finally dismissed for 434 on the fourth morning — Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed having added a brisk 41 for the ninth wicket — the lead stood at 357. The match had been pulled back from the edge and reshaped entirely.
New Zealand chased bravely, if briefly. Spearman and Young added 50, delaying the inevitable with optimism, but once Mushtaq found his way through, the innings lost its spine. The score slipped to 75 for five, and when captain Lee Germon was run out at 101 for six, the Test seemed already to belong to memory.
Roger Twose resisted, as he had all match, gathering another half-century from the wreckage. But resistance without belief rarely alters outcomes. On the final morning, Pakistan required little more than an hour to close the door.
Mushtaq Ahmed finished with seven for 56 — his best in Test cricket — completing a match haul that brought his tally to 28 wickets in three Tests. This was no longer promise. This was arrival. Waqar Younis, relentless as ever, claimed his 200th Test wicket in his 38th match, bowling Nash and marking another milestone in a career that seemed to accumulate them without ceremony.
There was one final footnote. Danny Morrison, who had already equalled Bhagwat Chandrasekhar’s record of 23 Test ducks in the first innings, postponed infamy by scoring a single before falling to Mushtaq. Even records, it seemed, were waiting their turn.
Pakistan left the ground as winners, but also as something else — a team that, for once, had not relied solely on chaos or brilliance. This was a victory spun into being, patiently, deliberately, by a leg-spinner who understood that Test matches are not seized in moments, but shaped over days.
And in that understanding, Pakistan may have found something far more enduring than a win.
No comments:
Post a Comment