It was a Day of many firsts at Kolkata. Yet, it was something this batting line up have done quite often in this decade. Six of India's top 7 scored atleast 50, as India piled up 5/616 declared in 152 overs in their first innings at Kolkata. For Sourav Ganguly, the century at Eden was the icing on his comeback cake, with the red cherry on top as Navjot Sidhu would say. For the spectators at Eden, things just got better and better. First, Wasim Jaffer played a truly brilliant innings and in pure batting terms out-shined his illustrious colleagues in the middle order. Rahul Dravid score a careful, combative fifty before being evicted due to umpiring error. Tendulkar scored 82 of the easiest runs he may ever have scored in Test cricket. Laxman and Ganguly made hundreds, and Dhoni made a characteristic fifty full of dot balls and muscular strokes to round things off.
Even God might not have been able to script it better. Geoff Lawson and the Pakistan team management might contest the fact that God had anything to do with India's brilliance. They had to pick a clearly sick Shoaib Akthar because Yasir Arafat had not arrived yet. That Shoaib on antibiotics, weakened to the extent that he couldn't even deliver his second over convincingly, was considered better than the next available bowler ought to worry Pakistan. That they're judgement proved to be correct ought to worry them even more. If the three Indian batting innings in this series have revealed anything, it is that the other three bowlers in the Pakistan line up are just making up the numbers. Danish Kaneria can be effective, but he needs somebody to build pressure at the other end. Neither Sami nor Tanvir did that convincingly. Geoff Lawson's defense of his bowlers was spirited, and his position that his bowlers infact did well on a batting pitch will earn him the gratitude and respect of his team, but it begs the question - Does conceding 5/616 at 4 an over, even on a "batting pitch" constitute a "good effort"? Lawson mentioned that he thought they had Sourav Ganguly early in his innings. I can only assume he was referring to a couple of close LBW appeals - in each of those cases replays showed that the umpire had got it right, that the impact was outside off stump, and since Ganguly was offering a shot he could not be given out. Lawson neglected to mention that they got the biggest fish of them all thanks to Billy Doctrove's sympathetic index finger. Given Dravid's desire to get back into his groove, they might still have been bowling at him right now had that decision not gone Pakistan's way! Further, when India were bowling late on day 2, there were a couple of appeals against the left handed Salman Butt, with Kumble bowling round the wicket for LBW - where Butt padded up, and hawkeye showed that the ball was going on to hit the stumps. These were, strictly speaking even more likely to be out than any appeals against the Sourav Ganguly.
In each of the instances, the umpires got it right i think. Butt could not have been given out in those instances because there was simply too much doubt and too much speculation required. I also agree with Lawson's defense of his bowlers. He had little choice and he defended them gallantly.
The wicket is still playing well and Pakistan will hope that it holds together until the end of day 3. Even if it does, and even if they bat out of their skins and save the follow on, they will have to save the game in their first innings. Batting out even 70-80 overs on the 5th day, when the wicket is likely to become a Kumble Special will be extremely difficult. But, it isn't as simple as it seems for India. They have their own bowling worries. Munaf Patel still looks uncertain, Zaheer seemed to have hurt his ankle yesterday (but he returned) and Harbhajan Singh is on a comeback trail. This is where he will be expected to deliver cheap wickets. He will be under pressure. Rameez Raja prescribed a strategy for Pakistan in his audio report for Cricinfo - play Kumble with mainly with the bat and Harbhajan Singh mainly with the pad. Given the pressure Harbhajan Singh will be under to deliver, Pakistan may just consider attacking him, at least early on day 3.
Managing Harbhajan will be Kumble's biggest challenge as India look for the remaining 19 wickets.