Younus has made all the right moves

However much one may want to dismiss it as just another Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, starting at Galle on Saturday, the match will evoke a certain kind of emotion that one would not normally associate with any game of cricket. After all it is not every day that there is a direct attack on a cricket team by terrorists - a fate that befell the Sri Lankan team at Lahore exactly four months ago. On that infamous day gunmen fired on the visiting team's bus while the players were on their way to the Gadaffi stadium to resume the second Test match. Seven Sri Lankan cricketers were injured and eight local security men were killed in an attack that stunned the cricketing world, forced the immediate abandonment of the tour and turned Pakistan into a no-go zone for international teams. It is not for the first time that the two teams are meeting on the cricket field since that fateful day. Indeed, the three-Test series - the contestants also play five ODIs and a Twenty20 international - commences just two weeks after Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka in the final of the Twenty20 World Cup at Lord's. The teams had also met earlier in the Super Eight stage when Sri Lanka had won. Still there will be mixed emotions at the start of the contest though the fact that the teams are meeting in a Test series so soon after the terrorist attack will be seen as a victory for cricket. The players one supposes will put the unhappy events of the past in the back of their minds and get on with the game and both the teams have the kind of mentally strong personnel who can make the three-match series an engrossing one. Several of the players on both sides are contemporary greats or match winners and it will be futile to install either as the favourites. All the same it is interesting to note that Pakistan have never lost a Test series in Sri Lanka. They have won three - including the past two in 2000 and 2006 - and drawn the other two. This is really quite an achievement considering that Sri Lanka have proved almost unbeatable at home in recent times. Of the 19 home Tests Sri Lanka have played in the past five years, they have won 13, drawn four and lost just two -one of them to Pakistan by eight wickets in Kandy three years ago. On the other hand Pakistan have not experienced the rigours of a Test match on foreign soil since a two-match series in India in December 2007. Also Pakistan have played just one series at home over the past two years due to security concerns in the troubled nation, and that too had to be abandoned after the attack on the Sri Lankan team. On paper there is very little to choose between the teams though Pakistan will be encouraged by the return of Mohammad Yousuf, a classy batsman and experienced all rounder Abdul Razzaq to the Test fold after they ended their links with the ICL. Younus Khan has made all the right moves - on and off the field - as captain but will have a worthy foeman in Kumar Sangakkara who will be leading Sri Lanka for the first time in a Test series with Mahela Jayawardene stepping down after the aborted contest in Pakistan. For starters Sangakkara has made it clear that Lahore was not on the minds of his players. "The team members have done a really great job mentally getting over it," he said. Sangakkara and his team have also put in the back of their minds the loss in the ICC World Twenty20 final and are looking ahead to the Test series with a positive frame of mind. Pakistan's past record in the island nation as also the fact that they riding on a high at the moment does augur well for them too. In the final analysis the fate of the series may well hinge on how the Pakistan batsmen tackle the double spin menace of Murali and Mendis, for as I said earlier, there is very little to choose between the teams. The batting in particular on both sides is very strong but one only hopes the pitches nullify this and the Tests don’t turn out to be the batathons that marked the two matches in Pakistan a few months earlier particularly the first Test where a total of 600 plus was countered by a total of 700 plus. It was all quite amazing but hardly cricket.

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