Déjà vu?

Unfortunately, living where I do, it's next to impossible to watch any of the First Test against South Africa. The time difference between Chicago and South Africa means the game starts at 2:30 a.m and ends some time around 9:30 a.m, so at best, I'd get an hour or so, which is why I haven't coughed up the cash to get the feed on my computer. Nevertheless, just reading about what's happening, this test, at least so far, is starting to remind me of Multan 2005.

Now normally I would never compare an ongoing match to a past win because of my perpetual fear of jinxing us. But seeing as how my anti-jinxing tactics never work anyway, I'm just going to go ahead and point out the comparison. Consider:

1. Both times we batted first and ended up with a decent but below-par score. In Multan it was 274, here it was 313.

2. Both times, the opposition managed a significant lead (144 at Multan, 104 here) on the back of a big hundred by a left-hander (Trescothick with 193, Prince with 138).

3. Both times, Day 3 saw a solid batting effort by us, keeping us in the game. In Multan, we ended the day 19 behind with 8 wickets in hand. Here, we're 1 behind with 8 wickets in hand. In addition, both times, one of the overnight batsman on Day 3 was a left-handed opener with a solid score to his name (Butt 53 not out in Multan, Farhat 41 not out here).

Tell me I'm wrong.