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Indians win two series, millions of hearts in Pak
Team India's amazing camaraderie with their bitterest cricketing rivals has become an example for people on both sides of the borders.
As Indians rejoiced over a historic Test series triumph on Friday against Pakistan on Pakistani soil, team India's amazing camaraderie with their bitterest cricketing rivals has become an example for people on both sides of the borders.
India won both the Test and one-day series with Pakistan in a path-breaking revival tour that ended a two-year impasse in sporting ties. The spectacular 39-day tour was marked by many individual and collective records.
As the team scripted the breaking of a 49-year jinx, the young Virender Sehwag became the first Indian to hit a triple century and Rahul "The Wall" Dravid cemented his place in the annals of the game with his solid batting.
India's 2-1 victory in the three-match Test series brings them a step closer to ending another jinx, that of not winning a series outside the subcontinent since 1986 when Kapil Dev's team beat England 2-0.
The highly charged and unpredictable one-day series before that saw Sourav Ganguly and his boys winning 3-2 as over 8,000 Indians crossed the border to watch cricket, meet relatives separated by the partition of 1947 and pay homage at some famous shrines.
The team set a date with history when the tour began March 10 amidst high anticipation. India had never won a Test or a Test and one-day series on Pakistani soil since 1955.
While Ganguly led the team in all five one-dayers, the honour of leading
India to their first Test win went to Rahul Dravid because Ganguly was injured.
That maiden innings-and-52-run win orchestrated by Sehwag's 309 came at the Multan Cricket Stadium on April 1.
Ganguly, who had injured his back while fielding during the fifth one-day match at Lahore, also missed the second Test at Lahore, but regained fitness to return for the third Test, leading India to its final triumph at the Pindi Cricket Stadium.
But their feat on the pitch was small compared to that in the larger canvas of India-Pakistan relations.
Right from the moment the Indians boarded the Indian Airlines flight from New
Delhi till the time they landed at the Allama Iqbal International
Airport at Lahore about 40 minutes later, Pakistanis remained spellbound
with people virtually talking, eating, sleeping cricket.
Local fans doted on the Indian men in blue everywhere they went, almost giving an impression they were more popular in Pakistan than their own national team.
Besides Sehwag's fabulous triple ton and Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 194 at Multan and Dravid's 270 at Rawalpindi, the bowling of Irfan Pathan and Lakshmipathy Balaji were the highlight of the tour.
Pathan and Balaji came into their own after pace spearhead Zaheer Khan had to return home midway through the tour due to an injury.
Both Irfan and Balaji manfully shouldered their responsibility, bowling incisive spells that gave crucial breakthroughs to the team.
Never in the limelight like Tendulkar, Ganguly or other bowlers, Balaji surprised all and became the most popular Indian on the tour.
Indian spectators not only shared food and pleasantries with their hosts but also made special joint flags of the two nations, embracing the mushy warmth of friendship after bitterness.
Apprehensions about the security of the cricketers in matches being played in Karachi and Peshawar turned out to be unfounded.
The Indian teams also won many hearts - as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had told them before they embarked on the tour - by participating in charities and other causes.
Immediately after their win at Multan, the team went to the SOS Village and all the players signed on the bat, which would be auctioned to generate money for the orphanage.
Tendulkar and V V S Laxman also featured in a promotional film on a polio eradication campaign with Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and bowler Shoaib Akhtar.
