Former players back India against Pakistan

Mumbai: Former players Erapalli Prasanna and Ajit Wadekar back India to do well in the forthcoming home series against Pakistan starting from November 5.

"India should be able to do well against Pakistan in the home series as they have an all-round strength and our senior players have enough experience to handle pressure situations while our youngsters are more talented than the ones in the Pakistan team," legendary off-spinner Prasanna told Cricketnext.com on Monday.

"Pakistan depend heavily on Younis Khan especially in the One-Dayers while their top order looks very inexperienced and the youngsters are not as consistent as they should be. Though Shahid Afridi is a dangerous batsman, he is again not consistent as his team like him to be and seems to be concentrating on his leg-spin bowling more nowadays than on his batting," Prasanna observed.

"Even against South Africa, on their home soil, Pakistan’s batting was exposed despite the hosts managing to win a couple of low scoring matches," he added.

"Their youngsters like Salman Butt, Imran Nazir and Yasir Hameed have been around for some time but have not made a lasting impression so far while experienced players like Mohammad Yousuf, their most dependable batsmen at one time, and Kamran Akmal have been struggling to find form," Prasanna pointed out.

Despite Pakistan having an impressive line-up of new ball bowlers, Prasanna felt the controversial speedster Shoaib Akhtar was not as fearsome as he used to be and finding a winning combination would be tough task for the visitors.

"As far as their bowling is concerned, I sincerely think Shoaib Akhtar is not as deadly as he used to be even though the other new ball bowlers like Umar Gul, Mohammad Asif and the new comer Sohail Tanvir are bowling really well. However, the Pakistanis lack variety as they don’t have a specialist spinner in their ODI team," he added.

"May be a specialist spinner like Danish Kaneria would have done a big difference to their bowling line-up as the new ball bowlers can be predictable sometimes in a five-match One-Day series played at a stretch," Prasanna said.

"So compared to Pakistan’s bowling department, I think the Indians have variety with a good mix of left and right arm seamers and a left arm spinner in Murali Kartik and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh," he added.

"The only department they (Pakistanis) might have an edge over the hosts could be in their fielding. But again the Indians can lift their fielding standards and even the best of the teams will fumble or miss catches on their off-days so it becomes difficult to predict any team on their fielding alone but overall I think India should do well in the forthcoming series," Prasanna said.

Former skipper and coach, Ajit Wadekar, who agreed with Prasanna on most of the points, said India may miss a solid batsman in the middle with the absence of their former captain Rahul Dravid, who as been dropped for the first two matches of the ODI series.

"India will surely miss Dravid in the middle. Even though we have very good stroke makers among our youngsters, Dravid would have added solidity in the middle and could have held one end up so that the others could go after the bowling from the other end," Wadekar observed.

"However, apart form that weakness, I think India should be able to do well in both the One-Day and Test series as they have better all-round team and will be playing in front of the home crowd," Wadekar added.

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