On dodgy wickets, defending modest totals after batting first, India has always shown spunk. They did so again today amid extraordinary pressure and heightened expectation in a cricket match that clearly went far beyond the game given the tensions back home. It was a rare sight to see the Indian players huddle together near the pavilion -- football style -- as they came out to defend their unpretentious 227 against the swaggering Pakistan. You could see that this was something special.

How well they did it. The Pakistanis went rocketing off the blocks, as if they wanted to finish the game in 25 overs. But you could see it was virtually a reprise of the Bangalore game in the 1996 World Cup. The nervy arrogance at the beginning gave away tostodgy concern in the middle, then hopless panic towards the end, as the Indians chipped out their wickets, finally dismissing them for 180 and winning by a mile.

After being routed here, there, and everywhere, India has maintained its hegemony where it counted most they had beaten Pakistan in the 1992 World Cup in Sydney by 43 runs, beaten them in 1996 World Cup in Bangalore by 39 runs, and they beat Pakistan by a comfortable 47 runs today in a game described by Wasim Akram, rather superciliously, as a ``practice match ahead of the crunch games'', one that he would like to use to test his team's skills to ``chase totals''.