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Aussies do it in style

Prem Panicker

As the Pepsi Cup final, at the Firozeshah Kotla, got into its final stages, an Australian friend of mine was telling me, on chat, that she felt rather ambivalent about the result.

Her line of thinking seemed to be that there was something sneaky, unfair about Australia playing rather ordinary cricket throughout a tournament, then walking off with the trophy at the end.

Remember, the side under Steve Waugh did the same thing, earlier this year, when it pipped South Africa to the post, at home?

I don't know. To my mind, there is a lot -- all of it positive -- to be said for a side that, come the big occasion, can shrug off poor form, illness, injury, and the mental low that comes of being repeatedly outplayed, and put it all together when it matters the most.

Big match temperament, I believe it is called. And on the day, the Aussies indicated that they have it, and to spare.

The Aussies have one other strength -- like model schoolboys, they do their homework before the big day. And it was evident, this preparation, in almost every move they made, both in the field and with the bat.

The pitch at the Kotla was always going to be a major factor in the game. In Test match terms, it would qualify as a typical fourth day wicket -- a shade crusty on top, tending towards spin, with an uneven bounce that would keep the batsmen guessing. Whatever life there was in it for the quicks would be in the very first hour, thanks to overnight dew which, at this time of the year, does tend to get rather heavy.

Thus, despite the smallness of the playing area, it was going to be a tight, relatively low-scoring game. And the side with the greater patience and application was going to come out on top.

Mohammad Azharuddin did his side a very big favour by winning the toss and opting to bat first, on a track where 250, or thereabouts, would be next to impossible to chase.

The first ten overs produced enough evidence of two things -- one, that the Aussies had put a lot of thinking into this game. And two, that the Indian batsmen were getting a bit spoilt by the belters they had got to bat on right throughout this series.

Both Tendulkar and Ganguly love coming onto the front foot, in the first 15 overs, to hit their drives through the line. Kasprowicz and Fleming bowled the perfect line and length to foil that -- just short, on the stumps, making the ball lift, the occasional low bounce adding to the confusion in the batsmen's minds. For Ganguly in particular, both bowlers persistently came round the wicket, going wide of the crease and arrowing the ball into off stump or thereabouts.

15/0 in 5, 37/0 -- and as the overs ticked by, the frustration in both Tendulkar and Ganguly was evident. Rather than adapt to the conditions that existed, they attempted to change the conditions to suit them -- and both paid the price before the field restrictions were off.

In the eight over, Tendulkar had taken recourse to standing a good foot outside his crease to try and shorten the length the Aussie bowlers were bowling to him. And in that over, he hit two good fours -- one the trademark straight hit, over the bowler's head, the next, a 'wedge' type shot (sorry, I guess I've been watching too much golf these last few days) over mid off, both crashing one bounce into the hoardings.

Over number 11, Sachin tried the same stunt again. Standing well forward, he then moved predeterminedly forward to try and drive on the up. Fleming countered with the perfect ball -- just short, lifting sharply and forcing the batsman, caught in the wrong position, to edge for Gilchrist to dive a long way away to his right and take a lovely catch.

Ganguly played a few fluent drives, whenever he got the ball in the slot. But he, more than Tendulkar, seemed reconciled to the fact that this was not his kind of track, and was working the ball around quite nicely for singles when he, like Tendulkar, perished to half-smart batting. It was the 15th over, and ball one saw the batsman come dancing out, trying to take advantage of the acreage left untenanted thanks tothe restrictions. Tom Moody countered that one by arrowing the ball into his pads. Two balls later, he was down the wicket again -- predictably. Moody promptly thumped it in short, Ganguly went for a wild heave, the ball went off his shoulder onto the back of his bat and Gilchrist, diving forward, picked up another beaut.

While on the subject, Ganguly has to learn to stop reacting each time he is given out. Here, he indicated it was off his shoulder. Given the sequence, it is possible the batsman did not notice the ball touch bat on its way through -- but whatever, he still has no business making a big thing out of it each time he gets out.

That brought Azhar and Sidhu together, and both batsmen settled down very well to the task of recouping. And with the ball not coming on to bat, it was a hard grind, characterised by nudges, pushes, prods -- the whole made harder by a very determined Australian fielding side. The progression says it all: 62/1 in 15, 72/2 in 20, 93/2 in 25, 122/2 in 30.

It was during this phase that the folly of trying too hard in the beginning and, as a result, losing those two wickets became really apparent. Steve Waugh, in consequence, was let off the hook on his weak point -- support bowling. Having packed the side with batsmen, Waugh didn't have too much cover for Kapra, Fleming and Warne, which meant there were 20 overs from part-time bowlers the Indians could have looked to score heavily off. However, with those two wickets having gone down, neither Azhar nor Sidhu could go after Warne, Moody or Waugh himself, in the middle overs.

But in context of the pitch, 122/2 in 30 was not at all bad going -- with wickets in hand, it still set up the possibility of a total around the 240, 250 range. And that, on this track, was a sure winner.

But again, the Indians tried to do a bit too much. And paid a heavy price.

In over number 31, a single made Azharuddin only one of two batsmen, worldwide, to have over 8,000 runs in ODIs -- ahead of him there is only Desmond Haynes, with 8649 in 238 games.

At that point in his innings, the Indian captain was looking good, playing to the conditions, not chancing his arm, but working the singles and twos very well indeed. So why he felt the need, out of the blue, to try a huge cross-bat heave at a standard Steve Waugh delivery outside off, aiming to clear the ground over midwicket, is anyone's guess. In any case, there was Azhar, on his knees, swinging for the fences. And there was Michael Bevan, at deep midwicket, gratefully accepting the catch.

You would have assumed that the mistake would have taught the rest a lesson -- but no, Just an over later, Sidhu went down the track to the same bowler aiming to heave over mid off. Hitting over the top, on the rise, is always iffy on a pitch where the ball is stopping on you and coming on slow -- and predictably Sidhu, who had till then kept his composure admirably, holed out to mid on. And another wicket had fallen against the run of play.

Thus far, the Indians appeared to have forgotten all the virtues that had seen them dominate the series thus far. No batsman, after getting his eye in, went on to play the big innings. No pairing put together the kind of long, high-scoring partnerships that were a feature of earier games. And therefore, the Aussies were enabled to keep the pressure right on, throughout.

146/4 in 35. 168/4 in 40. Obviously, runs weren't coming too easily for both Jadeja and Kanitkar. But with six wickets in hand, sixty deliveries to go in the final phase, India still seemed on course to add a further 70, 80 runs (in earlier games, the home side had been scoring almost 100 in the final ten with great consistency).

But for the first time -- the irony being that the first time was when India could least afford it -- the side made a mess of the final ten overs. To the tune of six wickets for just 59 runs, the team not even batting the entire quota of 50 through -- and that in ODIs is a cardinal sin.

Kanitkar fell to a ball from Fleming that straightened with the arm, the batsman missing with his attempt to run it down to third man. Agarkar, who looked very easy and relaxed in his first outing with the bat in international cricket, drove at Shane Warne before he got properly set, attempting to hit on the rise. And like Sidhu before him, found it doesn't pay -- the ball stopped a shade and Agarkar wafted it to extra cover.

Ajay Jadeja, unbeaten in four outings thus far, would have set a world record had he batted out this innings as well. However, here he came charging down the track to Kapra, the bowler spotted it and held the ball back a shade, and Jadeja ended up hitting it straight up in the air for a simple return catch.

Mongia went for his pet shot, stepping away and trying to clear extra cover, only to put Bevan in business at the sweeper position. Venkatesh Prasad, who must have been watching Ajay Jadeja with rapt admiration, tried to emulate him by stepping away from his stumps and hitting through point -- too ambitious for a man of his limited batting skills, and an ill-conceived shot in any case against a yorker bang on middle stump. And Rahul Sanghvi discovered, as many others in this tour have before him, that Mark Waugh is lethal when it comes to direct hits.

The Indian innings folded up with three balls to spare. And short of a winning score by at least 15, 20 runs.

For the Aussies, Kapra and Fleming bowled very well, both at the start, and at the death. And Warne, for once able to come in and attack new batsmen rather than face well set strokeplayers, bowled very tight, with tremendous control.

The real bonus was the fielding -- today, the Aussies were electric. And with that kind of backing, even ordinary bowling -- vide Moody, for instance -- begins to look quite decent.

On the minus side, one does wish the Aussies wouldn't quite lose it when they are charged up. And being "pumped up" is no excuse for histrionics of the kind we saw in the final ten overs. To cite one instance, Warne bowled a flipper that struck Jadeja on the pad, the batsman was not only well forward, but was attempting to flick a ball palpably drifting down leg. Why Warne went into Oscar-winning mode on the appeal, then audibly said, 'Not one f****** LBW in this series!' is something for Peter Van Der Merve to worry about. As was another incident involving Fleming, this time, in Oscar-worthy dramatics.

Such things do detract, a fraction, from the overall image of the side. Or is that kind of thinking supposed to be passe, in these days of "professionalism"?

Someone needs to take Venkatesh Prasad and tell him to loosen up. He seems, still, to be reliving the last few months, when he got jerked around on the selectorial string, fit one day, unfit the next, unsure all the time. His confidence is visibly low, and his bowling is suffering badly as a result. The strongest sign of it being that Prasad, normally a bowler whose forte is off and thereabouts, alternating the late leg-cutter with the one going through straight or seaming fractionally in, bowls a bulk of his deliveries on the leg side these days. And, as a result, gets scored off quite easily. Only rarely is there a flash of that old leg-cutter -- and each time he produces it, he leaves the batsman looking rather silly. One good ball in about three overs, though, ain't going to do it for him.

Ajit Agarkar, on the other hand, could be teaching in confidence school -- he seems incredibly collected at the bowling crease doing just what he needs to do at the time. Ball one was on off seaming away, and Gilchrist, who appeared to have not learnt much from watching the Indian openers perish, slashed wildly for Sachin Tendulakr to hold a good catch at slip. Agarkar then went on to bowl a probing spell, his figures at one stage reading 2-1-2-1.

Runs, though, went too freely at the other end and, beyond a point, Agarkar's line too succumbed to the pressure of trying to make up for his wayward partner. Kumble came on for Prasad -- and struck immediately, with a vicious top-spinner to which Mark Waugh played forward defensively, the ball dropping at his feet and, thanks to the spin, rolling back to thud into the base of the stumps.

At 56/2 in 11 overs, the game could have gone either way. And Kumble and Kanitkar swung it firmly in India's direction with an inspired spell of spin bowling that saw both Ricky Ponting, a centurion in his last essay, and Michael Bevan, rated by his captain the best one day player in the business, struggle. The rate of progression here tells the story: 16/1 in 5, 56/1 in 10, 65/2 in 15, 82/2 in 20.

Just 26 runs, in 10 overs, and the pressure was right on the Australians. Something had to crack -- and it proved to be Ponting. Irritated by the shackles, anxious to dominate as he did during his last essay, Ponting came dancing down a long way to Sanghvi. The left arm spinner has a lovely, deceptive loop -- Ponting found that out the hard way as he misread the flight totally, to be beaten and stranded. Mongia did take some more time between the collection and the taking off of the bails than he ought -- but Ponting was so far down, it didn't make a difference.

At this stage, Azharuddin miscalculated. His motive perhaps could have been to conserve his spinners for the death -- but bringing Prasad back into the attack at that point let the Aussies off the hook, the medium pacer going for 10 in the first over of his second spell, and for 9 in his next over. True, the last ball of his second over did fetch the wicket of Shane Warne -- rather surprisingly promoted up the order, in a side that was batting Damien Martyn at 8. But those 19 runs in two overs meant that Australia, then dipping behind India in scoring rate and getting increasingly frantic for runs, could get some of the pressure off.

The ball in question from Prasad was a full toss, landing bang on the top of the stumps, and Warne, with his furniture in disarray, stood there looking incredulous, then gesturing to the umpire that the delivery should have been no-balled, because it was waist-level.

Not.

A rather needless display of petulance, again, from a great star who, one wishes, could lobotomise this childish streak out of his mental makeup.

Reverting back to the Prasad question, it seems rather strange that successive Indian skippers ignore Saurav Ganguly with such bewildering thoroughness. With the ball not coming on at all, the slow bowler would have been the ideal option, had the fielding side's intention been to block one end and attack with spin at the other. But as so often during Tendulkar's tenure, so again here, Ganguly found himself patrolling the outfield when he could have been more useful at the bowling crease.

From that point on, Steve Waugh and Michael Bevan put their heads down, and all but batted India out of the game with some intelligent working of the singles and twos, and great running between wickets.

At this point, another difference between the way the Australians (and, in fact, the South Africans) think their game through, as opposed to the home side, became evident. Both Bevan and Steve Waugh went out of their way, even, to place the ball in the direction of the weaker fielders, the ones with not so reliable throwing arms -- Prasad, Sidhu, Ganguly being the chief among such. And challenged those fielders, converting ones to twos by running on the throw. Contrast that with the Indian performance -- barring Agarkar, who deliberately ran to a push to Warne even when the fielder was very close, none of the others attempted to put pressure on the leggie's throwing arm, despite the knowledge that he has a shoulder injury, despite the fact that during his stint in the field he was invariably rolling the ball back in from the deep.

Little things, but they have a habit of adding up.

In Australia's case, it added up to a score of 169/4 in 40 -- dead heat, that, with India.

At this point, Steve Waugh showed the value of his enormous experience. Kanitkar and Kumble had been held back for the death. Kumble on the day was in superb form, not permitting the slightest liberty, going at less than three an over at that stage. Obviously, if the ask wasn't to get too tough, a calculated assault had to be launched against one of the others -- and the Aussie skipper shrewdly picked the less experienced Kanitkar for his target.

Over number 41, ball three, saw Waugh set himself and heave, cross bat, over wide mid on for a six. And two balls later, yet another huge heave, six more. Waugh then completed the job with his third cross bat hit of the over, this one along the ground but fetching four in the same wide mid on region. The over went for 19, and the pressure was right off the chasing side.

With Kumble and Agarkar bowling tight, the scoreboard went into somnambulism mode once more. Then came over number 45 and again, Steve Waugh with calculated aggression blazed two successive square drives off the first two deliveries, both fours and Australia had put defeat behind them. Kumble struck back with a vicious topspinner on off that castled the Australian skipper off the very next ball.

And Ajay Jadeja, man of the series for his incredibly consistent batting, provided another brief flutter when Moody tried to square drive Agarkar, the youngster's ability to get the ball to lift making the batsman play in the air. Jadeja, slightly backward at point, flung himself a long, long way to his right to pull off, while still airborne, the kind of catch that has made Jonty Rhodes a worldwide celebrity.

But in the end, it was Australia, by five wickets with 8 balls remaining. And the difficultly the touring side evinced in reaching the modest total only underlined the fact that India lost the game in the first half, when it failed to translate the advantage of winning the toss into the kind of total that would have given the bowlers some backing.

One man made the difference, in the end -- Michael Bevan. Who, unable to bat with his customary freedom, produced a superb demonstration of concentration and application, staying there, weathering long spells of inactivity, running fiercely to convert singles into twos, and anchoring the side through the chase. It was precisely the kind of innings at least one Indian batsman had needed to produce -- but failed to, when it mattered the most.

Peter Van Der Merve, whose judgement when it comes to man of the match awards has been impeccable, did it yet again here when he choose, not Bevan, but Steve Waugh for the honour. And justified his selection by pointing out that Waugh had taken out two key wickets in the Indian middle order, then played the innings that really won the game for Australia, and added thoughtful captaincy to his contributions with bat and ball.

A superb all round display, in the end, from the visitors. Who, after a miserable tour, have the consolation of leaving on a high, just ahead of the Sharjah series of encounters between the two teams, and New Zealand.

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