From the 19th on, the 2011 edition of the World Cup has tobogganed across the length and breadth of three countries - a competition desperately seeking a contest.
Finally, it all came together at the Premadasa Stadium this afternoon: the crowds, the music, the electricity, the magic.
Pakistan's name has been twinned, almost reflexively, with adjectives like "explosive", "temperamental", "mercurial" and a dozen synonyms - but "calm" and "measured" have not been among them till this afternoon, when Younis Khan and Misbah ul-Haq put on a master-class of middle-overs batsmanship.
The score was 105/3 in the 21st over when they came together and put on a show. In the short formats of cricket, "show" is associated with power packed displays of big-hitting, but the two veterans - who on the day showed perfect understanding of each other, acute positional awareness and a razor-sharp knowledge of the geometry of batting - reminded us that singles can be as effective, calm good sense as compelling a spectacle, as the adrenalin-charged efforts of the game's muscle-bound marauders.
It was cat versus mouse, and you couldn't take your eyes off the screen for a single moment of it.
It was in the 20th over, just before Misbah walked out to join Younis, that Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara twinned his spinners. The attempt at the time was to slow the flow of runs, after the two openers and Kamran Akmal had flung their bats vigorously to power Pakistan to 65 for 1 at the end of the first ten overs, and 105/1 after 20.
The first five overs Muralitharan and Herath bowled in harness yielded 11 runs. Younis and Misbah were sussing them out; the next three overs of spin produced 16 as the two batsmen worked them, and the field, around like master puppeteers.
The two batsmen managed just one boundary between them off the two spinners - but against that, they milked a phenomenal 51 singles against just 40 dot balls, a demonstration of physical endurance and cricketing savvy both.
They were a study in contrasts: Younis with a smile as wide as all outdoors; Misbah with features frozen into the graven immobility of a waxwork; Younis with his penchant to press forward as his trigger movement, Misbah with his predilection to stay back in the crease. If Younis preferred to move across his stumps and open up the leg side, Misbah's ploy was to back away from his leg stump position to create acute angles on the off.
The contrasting techniques compounded the problem for the bowlers: thanks to the rapid strike rotation, both spinners had to constantly change their lines and lengths; the fielders ran themselves ragged adjusting to the change at the batting end.
The batsmen were never rushed; there was nary a stutter in the calling and running. Most times, the non-striker ran with a fluidity that suggested he knew just what his batting partner would do to any given line, any length. While the two were out there, it all looked - what's the word? - inevitable.
Kumar's hand was forced; he took his spinners off and brought on Angelo Mathews and Tillekeratne Dilshan. Younis and Misbah pounced. 23 runs came off the next three overs, and Kumar was forced to go back to his spinners in a bid to stop the death of the thousand cuts the two batsmen were inflicting on them. And this in turn meant he had less of their overs for the end phase, and would be forced to rely on his pace bowlers who, in the first phase of the innings, had gotten a fair share of tap.
Their display, which through these non-violent means resulted in a 108 run partnership at 5.3, was bookended by two displays that were more typical of the Pakistan we all know and are exasperated by.
There was much pre-match reading of tea-leaves, with pundits arguing about how the relaid pitch at the Premadasa would behave. Murali ended the argument with a classic quote when, speaking on the pre-match show, he said, "What laid, relaid, whatever, this is Sri Lanka, the pitch will play low and take spin."
Winning the toss was critical therefore, and Afridi did his team that signal favor. Upon which the two openers proved that Murali knew more than the pundits: they kept sticking their foot a long way down the wicket in predetermined fashion, and hitting through the line with nary a care for sudden bounce or seam movement.
The muscular Ahmed Shehzad and the silky Mohammed Hafeez managed 28 in the first five overs before the former succumbed to his own adrenalin-overdose. He aimed a lashing drive at a Perera delivery a bit too far from his body and going further, and only managed the edge.
Kamran Akmal came out, got the bit firmly between his teeth, and compensated for his partner's sudden, inexplicable pacifism by smashing the ball around the park. And then came comedy gold: Hafeez swept Murali to short fine; Kamran raced all the way to his partner's end while Hafeez stayed rooted to his spot; Sangakkara collected the throw, found himself confronting two batsmen, and flung a wild throw to the other end; Murali threw up his hands in frustration as the ball sailed over his head; the two batsmen meanwhile played an impromptu game of chicken; Hafeez suddenly decided to try to complete the run, stepped out of his crease, thought better of it.
By then the ball had been relayed to the bowler, who broke the wicket. At which the two Pakistan batsmen stood there looking at each other and everyone else, until the umpire came along, put a hand in the small of Hafeez's back, and gave him a little shove to get him started on the long walk back.
Somehow, the three of them had hauled Pakistan to 105/2 before the two veterans came together to show what the middle overs are all about. They got Pakistan to 209/3 at the end of 40 - and with a power play due, with batsmen of the explosive capabilities of Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi and Abdur Razzaq still in the hut while the Lankans had just two overs of Murali and one of Herath to call on during the slog phase.
It was a recipe for a 300-and-plenty score, and the credit for pegging Pakistan back belonged entirely to Murali.
The veteran bowled overs 44 and 46 and gave away just five runs for the wicket of an increasingly bewildered Umar Akmal. There was nothing Murali did not do in those two overs: he bowled from wide of the crease and then came so close to the wickets he was in danger of knocking them over; he bowled over the wickets and round; he turned off breaks like a top and he made deliveries go through straight as you like; he bowled short, full and in-between. He bowled 12 deliveries in that magical spell, and it is safe to say no two were even remotely alike.
He would have struggled to maintain the pressure, but for Nuwan Kulasekhara who, in the 45th, bowled a profusion of in-swinging yorkers that kept even the well-set Misbah quiet.
In sum, Pakistan reminded us of its reputation for "unpredictability" and made a meal of the last ten overs, managing to eke out a mere 68 (including 36 in the power play between 44-48).
The 277/7 Pakistan ended with represented under-achievement - with the platform Younis and Misbah had provided, and with their fearsome arsenal of late order hitters, they should by rights have had at least another 30 on the board.
In an odd bit of symmetry, Afridi at the toss said he wanted 270 from his batsmen, and Kumar said 270-ish was what he would feel comfortable chasing under lights on this deck. As it turned out, Afridi was the one who called it right.
Dilshan and Tharanga struggled early on to made headway against the controlled pace and aggression of Shoaib Akthar and the wicket to wicket accuracy and calibrated seam movement of Abdur Razzaq. The first five overs produced a mere 16, before the two Lankans began finding the range and accuracy on their shots.
Once they moved up the gears, they made the target look smaller than it was; boundaries flowed on both sides of the wicket (they had 11 between them) with Dilshan hitting beautifully on the up and through the line, and Tharanga using supple wristwork to steer the ball maddeningly out of reach of the field.
Just when it looked like the openers were playing it right - taking a healthy bite out of the target while blunting the first keen edge of the Pakistan attack - the innings nose-dived.
Mohammed Hafeez hadn't looked particularly impressive in his opening overs, but a combination of well set field and well planned delivery did for Tharanga. Afridi, who channels his nervous energy by changing his fielders after every ball, then sprinting over to get in his bowler's ear, had moved himself closer, and a touch finer, at mid off. Hafeez tossed it up; Tharanga was tempted to drive; the turn caused the mishit and Afridi tumbled forward to take the catch.
Having done his bit in the field, the Pakistan skipper moved to the bowling crease and struck an even bigger blow. Afridi tends to hustle the ball through along tight lines around the off, varying the angles and degree of spin he imparts. Here, he hurried one through with the arm; Dilshan played for the break and tried to cut just outside his off; his mis-reading of the ball resulted in a thick bottom edge that dragged the ball back onto his stumps.
Not everyone will agree with Afridi's captaincy (it seemed odd to see him dispense with slips, as early as the second over, for Razzaq; it got odder when Dilshan and Tharanga both edged through that vacancy before wisdom dawned). Once in a while, though, he produces a moment of inspiration. Jayawardene walked out, and Afridi immediately brought his premier pacer back into play.
Akthar Mark II has been a delight to watch. The bombast has been shelved; he looks fit; his control has had a lot of work put into it; and his pace is right up there with the best, even on this track. Against Jayawardene, known to be a bit shaky around off stump early on in his innings, Akthar produced the perfect fast bowler's delivery: it was lightning fast; it hit the perfect length just outside off and just short of the good length mark, and then it darted in at speed, beating Jayawardene's tentative drive and zipping through the gap to hit the top of middle stump.
An over later, Afridi produced a beauty. He floated the ball right up on middle, inviting Thilan Samaraweera to come forward to him. He did. The ball dropped, bit, turned rapidly past the probing bat, and gave Kamran Akmal a comfortable stumping.
In the space of 42 deliveries, Pakistan had taken out four top order Lankan batsmen for a mere 20 runs. The Lankan innings was temporarily becalmed. Just nine runs came between overs 26-30; Chamara Silva and Kumar Sangakkara, taking considerable risks in their running (Kumar could have been run out twice and stumped once), stepped the pace back up a bit and, in the 34th over, opted to take the batting power. It helped that in the first of the power play overs, Akmal missed another stumping of the Lankan skipper - this one, a dilly.
The storyline by then was set - a Lankan recovery, cue Afridi, cue wicket. Kumar skipped out; Afridi spotted the move and banged it in short; the batsman had to go through with the shot (how many stumpings was Akmal expected to miss?), and all he managed was to put it in the air towards long on, where Shehzad came in off the line, tumbled forward, and held.
Perhaps the best measure of Sri Lanka's brief revival was that overs 31-40, inclusive of the batting power play, produced 59 runs for the wicket of the captain - a phase studded with obscenely bad running by the Lankans, and a crap shoot by the Pakistanis that, in terms of hitting the stumps, was more crap than shoot.
Heading into the turn, Sri Lanka needed 10 runs per over. Chamara Silva was AWOL (30 off 66 at that point; 40 dot balls, 23 singles, nary a boundary). Having created a record for the longest WC innings without a boundary, Silva woke up and whacked two in an Abdur Rahman over that produced 14 runs. Again, enter Afridi, whose bowling is as thoughtful as his batting is not, to finish a fine spell (10-0-33-4) by getting Angelo Mathews to hole out to long off.
Rinse, repeat - Chamara Silva hit a few; the ask got tantalizingly closer (46 needed off 25) and Akthar, after seeing Younis miscalculate a catch at short fine leg, responded with a snorter to castle Perera. The see saw continued - Hafeez bowled a great 49th over, until Kulasekhara smacked the last ball over the midwicket boundary to make the equation 18 needed of 6.
To cut a long story - 'Comedy of Unforced Errors' would work as title - Pakistan kept its wits together long enough to close the game out, thanks to a tight final over by Umar Gul.
This game looked tight only because, having been close to perfect for the first half of the Lankan innings, Pakistan took it into its head to show what it can do when it really concentrates on stuffing up.
Finally, what stayed in the mind was a quote from Mahela Jayawardene before the game: "I find it surprising that their name is not bandied about in the mix of potential World Cup winners as they have brilliant match winners with both bat and ball."?
He can now tell his mates 'I told you so' - if that is any consolation.
