STING IN THE TAIL

Zaheer Khan clouting Brett Lee for a six. It seemed a faint flicker of resistance before the inevitable surrender. But at the Wankhede Stadium, the flicker expanded its glow run by run, edge by edge, four by four, till 52 runs were added and the target was achieved. Zaheer and Murali Kartik's deeds a far cry from the archetypal surrender the Indian tail is used to. One of those rare moments to savour, when Indian tailenders turn certain defeat into improbable victory.

For a similar ODI moment, one has to turn the clock back 11 years, when Srinath and Kumble put together an unbeaten 52-run ninth-wicket stand in Bangalore to nudge past Australia. After Srinath forgot his batting skills by the mid-1990s, rarely has the tail wagged. Nobody expects the tail to shore up the batting in a big way, but they are also supposed to put a price on their wickets. Over and over again, discipline got lost in either tentative prods or airy-fairy shots.

There have been occasions when the tail capitalised on already huge totals, prolonging the agony of the opposition, such as a Kumble hitting his maiden test hundred at the Oval out of a humungous 664. But a constant ability to irritate and get under the skin of the opposition, the Indian tail has always lacked.

There are cherished individual moments - the outrageous swings of a Harbhajan Singh blade, which are not found in any coaching manual, 'smiling assassin' Lakshmipathy Balaji wading into Mohammad Sami and sending the ball into the stands and Sreesanth's break dance aimed at Andre Nel.

But when individual dazzle and collective will seek out each other, it's victory as Zaheer and Kartik proved. It's time the Indian tail stands up to be counted more often than not.