Misbah, Akmal fighting to avoid follow-on

Dec 11:  The duo of Misbah-ul-Haq and Kamran Akmal put on unbeaten 81-run partnership for the sixth wicket to resurrect Pakistan.

Pakistan ’s Misbah-ul-Haq (54) and Kamran Akmal (32) continued their fight to avoid follow-on against India, as they just needed 58 more runs to get past the elusive figure of 416. The duo added 81 runs for the sixth wicket to take Pakistan at 369 for the loss of five wickets in its first innings at the end of third day’s play here at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Monday.

Misbah came up with fighting half-century at the time of crisis to lead Pakistan's fightback in reply to India’s 626 in the first innings.

Misbah and Kamran Akmal did the replica act of second test to revive Pakistan when it faced a similar follow-on situation. In the current test Pakistan was struggling on 288-5 when their partnership started after the exit of stand-in skipper Younis Khan who scored a valiant 80, Mohammad Yousuf (24) and Faisal Iqbal (22).

Misbah fought for more than three hours to bail out Pakistan from the big trouble hitting eight boundaries in his 162-ball essay while Akmal's bold short stay contained seven fours from 57 balls.

Earlier in the morning, Pakistan resumed their fightback at 86-1 on a placid wicket, which is keeping low. Younis Khan and Salman Butt took the innings to 149 before Sourav Ganguly put an end to the 90-run partnership stand, by forcing Butt to edge an away going delivery straight to wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthick’s hands.

Later Younis and Yousuf had a 72-run stand for the third wicket before both were dismissed in quick time in quest of playing callous strokes. Khan was nearing towards his 16th century, his second in successive test innings, when he foolishly tried to reverse sweep Harbhajan Singh’s delivery resulting his uprooted stumps.

Yousuf (24) was going steady when he tried to slash Irfan Pathan’s outgoing delivery, which was caught in the gully by Yuvraj Singh. Delhi’s young lad Ishant Sharma got his first of this Test when Faisal Iqbal was sharply taken by his state mate Gautam Gambhir at short-leg.

India is looking to its first home test series against Pakistan in 28 years after winning the first Test match in New Delhi by six wickets, while Pakistan will be playing to salvage its pride by keeping the losing margin of the series at 1-0.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly feels, "The first session tomorrow holds the key as the ball will surely do something in the morning."

"They have got the last recognised pair at the crease. If we get an early breakthrough, it will be difficult for the rest of the batsmen," Ganguly added.