Nine each

Pakistan won the Bangalore Test of March 1987 by 16 runs, and with it a five-match series in which the first four had been drawn. The card gives the player of the match to Sunil Gavaskar for 21 and 96, on the losing side, in his last Test. It gives Iqbal Qasim five for 48 and four for 73, and Tauseef Ahmed five for 54 and four for 85.

One hundred and sixteen

Pakistan won the toss and batted, and were all out for 116 on the first day. Maninder Singh took seven for 27 in 18.2 overs. Saleem Malik made 33 and Tauseef 15 not out from 72 balls at number ten. India were 68 for two at the close, and the match looked like India’s.

One hundred and forty-five

The ledger. Gavaskar 21, bowled Tauseef. Kris Srikkanth 21, bowled Tauseef. Mohinder Amarnath 13, bowled Tauseef. Dilip Vengsarkar 50, caught off Tauseef. Ravi Shastri 7, caught off Tauseef. Mohammad Azharuddin 6, Kapil Dev 9, Roger Binny 1, Shivlal Yadav 0, Maninder 0, all to Qasim. Kiran More 9 not out.

Imran Khan and Wasim Akram bowled seven overs between them. Qasim bowled 30, fifteen of them maidens, for five for 48. Tauseef bowled 27 for five for 54. India’s lead was 29, and every one of the ten wickets had gone to spin.

Full scorecard: India v Pakistan, 5th Test, Bangalore, 13–17 March 1987 →

Two hundred and forty-nine

Pakistan batted better the second time. Ramiz Raja 47, Imran 39 in 129 minutes, Saleem Yousuf 41 not out, Qasim 26 at five. Shastri took four for 69 and Maninder three for 99 from 43.5 overs. The total was 249, and India needed 221.

Two hundred and four

Srikkanth and Amarnath were both out at 15, to Akram. Gavaskar and Vengsarkar took it to 64, Gavaskar and More to 80, and India closed the third day at 99 for four with Gavaskar 51 not out. Monday was a rest day.

On the Tuesday Azharuddin made 26 and put on 43 with Gavaskar. Shastri 4, Kapil 2. At 180 Gavaskar was caught by Rizwan-uz-Zaman off Qasim for 96, from 264 balls and 320 minutes, eighth out with 41 still needed. Binny made 15, Yadav 4, Maninder 2 not out. All out 204.

Qasim: 37 overs, four for 73. Tauseef: 45.5 overs, four for 85. Akram two for 19. Extras 27, of which 22 were byes, which is more than any Indian batter other than Gavaskar and Azharuddin made.

The other two

Between them Qasim and Tauseef bowled 139.5 of the 157.5 overs India faced and took eighteen of the twenty wickets. The other two went to Akram. Maninder’s seven for 27 is the bowling figure on the card that gets quoted, and it came in the innings that Pakistan lost by 29 runs on first innings. The eighteen came in the two innings that decided the match.

Imran was player of the series, for 324 runs and eight wickets. He and Akram bowled 18 overs in the match between them, and the card shows Imran taking none. The two spinners have no line on the card beyond their figures, and the figures read nine each.

The card’s umpires are Ram Gupta and V. K. Ramaswamy. It is Test number 1073, and the series line under it says Pakistan won the five-match series 1-0, which is the whole of the series on one line: four draws and this.

What the card holds

A 96 with 41 still needed, in a last Test, on the losing side, with the match award attached. A seven-for in a losing cause. Twenty-two byes. And two bowlers with 139.5 overs and eighteen wickets between them, which is the arithmetic of a series decided by 16 runs.

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No. 15 in The Other Guy, a series of 24.

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