'India Start Favourites'

India started favourites in this Samsung Cup and nowgoing into the final game tomorrow, they are once again the favourites to winthe trophy.

The Indian skipper and coach would stress theimportance of this final as not just an opportunity to win a silverware forall the efforts and the planning that has gone into this series, but also thepsychological advantage this Indian team would gain over their opponents goinginto a very important Test series.

Saurav Ganguly will be looking for an encore from hisbowlers in the final game. Irfan Pathan hopefully will again give us earlybreakthroughs which has been a feature of his still-nascent career. L. Balajiand Zaheer Khan have come on well going into the final match and they can makeit easier for Murali Kartik and the other bowlers to follow. As scoring runs isall about partnerships, so is bowling in tandem to take wickets and restrictrun-making.

In the first of the double-header in Lahore on Sunday, the Indian team showedthe ability to bounce back when the chips were down. The manner in which weachieved the target of 294 runs was even more pleasing. It was a target thatrequired almost six runs an over from the start. Although, we lost earlywickets, our batsmen ensured that the run-rate was kept up.

This target also required that our batsmen had to batthrough the 50 overs. In the end, we won quite convincingly with five overs tospare. It required a record sixth wicket partnership between Rahul Dravid andMohammad Kaif to ensure the series is still alive.

How often have we witnessed Dravid holding one end upand achieving a victory for India. Since his first class debut for Karnataka asan 18-year-old, he has always put a heavy price on his wicket, be it any match.He is a thorough professional in his preparation and his record at theinternational level is ample proof of it. Over a period of time, he has grown instature.

Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Kaif have added a newdimension to the Indian batting not just by their youth and exuberance but alsoin their maturity and sense of responsibility. They are letting themselves becounted. Kaif has shown a cool head in the past in pressure situations and itwas again in evidence on Sunday night. He played a mature innings to take Indiahome. The fielding standards in the team have risen due to the likes of Kaif andYuvraj and both compliment well to lift the spirit of the side.

V.V.S. Laxman and Ganguly will be keen to join the party in this run feasttomorrow after they briefly showed us their capabilities on Sunday.

The Pakistanis with this defeat will come hard at theIndians and their skipper Inzamam-ul Haq will once again be the key.

The Indian bowlers kept a tight leash on the Pakistanbatsmen and were rewarded well, but they would be disappointed they let them offthe hook after restricting them in the early overs. This was mainly due toInzamam's excellent batting. The Pakistan batting revolves heavily around theirskipper and this fact will be a point of discussion in the Indian camp.

The other dangerous batsmen in this series so far havebeen Yasir Hameed and Abdul Razzak. I was impressed with the line our bowlersbowled to Hameed, which ultimately brought about his downfall.

The final would be another thrilling contest and so farin this series cricket has been enthralling and exhilarating. The crowds have been great and this has been one factor thathas stood out!

PTI