A masterful one-day innings of 81 from Yousuf Youhana took Pakistan to victory against India in a close and thrilling encounter in front of a capacity crowd at Edgbaston.

An increasingly disciplined and competitive Pakistan side won by three wickets with four balls to spare and will now meet West Indies in the second semi-final at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday.

Set a moderate 201 to win by India, who were grateful to Rahul Dravid for a dogged 67 that prevented total collapse, Pakistan were reeling at 27-3 when Youhana came in to bat.

Wickets continued to tumble at regular intervals, with Youhana the one permanent fixture for Pakistan, and there were moments when the match was hanging precariously in the balance with the crowd on the edge of their seats.

Youhana's fourth-wicket partnership of 75 with Inzamam-ul-Haq, who made 41 and in the process became the second batsmen after Sachin Tendulkar to 10,000 ODI runs, seemed to have turned the game in Pakistan's favour.

But more wickets fell and at 152-6 with 9.4 overs to bowl and 49 needed, the game was again in the balance.

At that point Shahid Afridi came to the crease and threatened to decide the game with one of his devastating spells of hitting, which included two enormous straight sixes off Harbhajan Singh.

He scored 25 runs from 12 balls and a moment of calm and perspective would have proved conclusive, but that is not Afridi's style, and a wild slog from the first ball from Yuvraj Singh cost him his wicket and Pakistan were 187-7.

Not only was the game too close to call until the final couple of overs, but there was also an amazing symbiosis between the sides' innings, which suggested how little there is to choose between the sides.

Both countries lost an opening batsman in the first over, both lost their second wickets for 10 runs and while India were 28-3, Pakistan's near-identical score was 27-3.

While Indian had Rahul Dravid to hold their innings together with a dogged knock of 67, Inzamam-ul-Haq occupied a similar role for Pakistan with an equally defiant 41.

Both players had got off to slow starts before accelerating, Dravid scoring a single run in his first 18 balls, and Inzamam requiring 12 balls to get off the mark.

A further comparison between the teams were the admirable opening spells of fast-medium bowling, with Naved-ul-Hasan grabbing two wickets for Pakistan and exerting pressure through tight lines, and Irfan Pathan taking the first three wickets for India in a superb spell of seam and swing.

But beyond the factual details of the game, a deeper comparison was the jittery nerves they so obviously suffer when playing each other, aware that the eyes of a continent are living every moment.

The nerves were evident as India lost their first three wickets to poor shots, Sourav Ganguly poking at a wide one, VVS Laxman driving in the air to mid wicket and Virender Sehwag holing out to the only fielder in a huge space on the legside.

Pakistan's batsmen were hardly more assured at the top of the order. Though Imran Farhat edged a beautiful away-swinger from Pathan, loose shots cost the wickets of Shoaib Malik and Yasir Hameed.

It took the coolness and class of Dravid to rescue India's innings from 73-5 and boost it to 200 all out with the assistance of an aggressive 47 from 51 balls by Agit Agarkar at the end of the innings.

Dravid is the ideal anchor man but, if he has a weakness, it is that in one-day cricket, he finds it hard to shift gear from phlegmatic defiance to dominant attack. In reality India missed the greater aggression of the injured Tendulkar, who may have been the difference between the sides.

However, no one should mistake Dravid's coolness for lack of passion, his inflamed words with Shoaib Akhtar after a minor collision showed the ardour beneath the mask of cool, and his eyes were all fiery defiance as he left the bouncers that inevitably followed their altercation well alone.

Akhtar bowled fourth-seamer and the increasing discipline in his bowling was evident in a spell of 9.5 overs for 35 runs and four wickets, as he teased the batsmen with a combination of full deliveries and threatening short ones.

In his place as opening bowler alongside Mohammad Sami was Naved-ul-Hasan, his greater control at military medium keeping the brakes on in the first 15 overs, when his opening spell of six overs cost 14 runs and brought him two wickets.

When Naved came back at the end of the innings, he proved equally hard to get away and picked up two more key wickets, those of Agarkar and Dravid.

With the class of Youhana and Inzamam in their batting line-up and increasing organisation in their bowling Pakistan are hot favourites for their semi-final against West Indies and would test the resolve of England or Australia in the final.

Pakistan: Inzamam-ul-Haq (capt), Yasir Hameed, Imran Farhat, Shoaib Malik, Yousuf Youhana, Abdul Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Moin Khan, Naved-ul-Hasan, Mohammad Sami, Shoaib Akhtar.

India: SC Ganguly (capt), R Dravid, V Sehwag, VVS Laxman, M Kaif, Y Singh, RS Gavaskar, A Agarkar, IK Pathan, H Singh, A Nehra.

19 Sep, 2004