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DEAR REDIFF

India lift Coca Cola Cup

Prem Panicker

There's something about Coca Cola, apparently, that has India chasing stiff targets and pulling off superb wins. Earlier this year, the venue was Dhaka and India registered a world record, defeating Pakistan.

This time round, it was Sharjah, the opponents Australia, the target not quite as stiff, and India did it yet again, winning by a handy margin and, in the process, reversing the result earlier in India, when Australia sneaked into the Pepsi Cup final and went on to defeat India handily in the game that mattered.

Sitting here, watching Man of the Series Sachin Tendulkar drive his prize, the Opel Astra, around the stadium with the entire team piled on it, I find myself wishing that the game -- a great, almost a classic, ODI contest -- had not had its moments of bad blood, of bitterness. More so because it is the last time India and Australia were meeting each other at the end of almost three months of non-stop encounters, because both teams played good cricket through this period, set very high standards and we didn't need acrimony at the end of it all.

As it turned out, however, that was what we got a dose of on the final day of the Coca Cola Cup. But more of that later. At the start, Azharuddin made a brilliant decision when he opted to field first on winning the toss. He based it on the fact that there was a storm in Sharjah yesterday. Thus, while the pitch itself was covered, the outfield got a lot of rain on it -- which, besides slowing it down a tad in the first session before the moisture was blazed away by the sun, also meant that sub-surface moisture would have induced some sweating of the pitch under the covers, meaning that whatever help the quicks were going to get would be in the first hour of the game.

Azhar opted to take advantage of that early life. It was a great call. More importantly, it was a courageous call -- the experts of the time, Tony Greig and Greg Chappell, were questioning it on the television commentary. And I suspect that had India lost, Azhar would have been universally slammed for inserting the opposition.

India gambled when selecting its side, leaving out Harbajan Singh for Rahul Sanghvi -- a fair enough choice, Sanghvi having given the Aussies considerable trouble during the series back home; and bringing back the less than fully fit Ajit Agarkar for Harvinder Singh, who thus far had gone for something like 120/3 in about 20 overs.

That was a move of sheer desperation, the recall of Agarkar. And it had both its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, Agarkar as usual showed the happy knack of breaking through early, taking out two quick wickets, that too of the in form Mark Waugh and Tom Moody. On the flip side, Agarkar was never really letting go, he was constantly straining and looked out of sorts during the delivery stride and follow through, and this told badly on his accuracy as he went for a very expensive 61 off just 8 overs.

Agarkar first struck in the 3rd over, when a ball wide of off, going wider off the seam, had Mark Waugh aiming a cut at it. Agarkar has the knack of producing that extra nip off the wicket, and this induced the edge to Mongia.

Prasad, who on the day appeared to be bowling in a dream, produced a superlative maiden in over number three, then struck a crucial blow in the fifth over of the Aussie innings when he drew Ponting forward with a perfectly pitched delivery in the corridor around off, leaving him with the late leg-cutter to take the edge and put Mongia back in business.

Tom Moody was sent up the order to get on with things. As it turned out, he lasted four balls. He drove at one from Agarkar outside off, played too soon, the ball feathered the bottom of the bat on its way through to Mongia and Bucknor, after consulting the third umpire to see if the take was clean, sent Moody on his way.

In 5.5 overs, Australia were 26/3 and in deep trouble. Gilchrist, meanwhile, had milked Agarkar to a good extent, capitalising as the young quick, straining under his injury, erred constantly in line, giving him width outside off or bowling to his pads. With Bevan at the other end looking his usual solid self, the Australians mounted a recovery at this stage, and went along quite nicely in fact, till over number 20: 21/2 in 5; 45/3 in 10; 62/3 in 15; 84/3 in 20.

84/3 looked very little, but given the depth in the Australian batting and the position they were in at the end of the sixth over, it was a good comeback.

An over later, came more trouble. Kanitkar pitched outside off, turning it away from the left handed Gilchrist, who aimed a huge cut at it and ended up getting Mongia back into action for catch number four. Mongia, in fact, has had a brilliant end to this season -- his keeping being spectacular right through the Australian tour of India, and again here in Sharjah.

Steve Waugh joined Bevan and with the latter, as per his usual norm, judging and taking singles where almost any other international batsman would see fielders -- I would think the close study of a Michael Bevan innings should be mandatory for any international team preparing for an ODI series -- and Waugh supporting him well, Australia looked to be turning things round again.

And then disaster struck for Australia. In over number 27, Bevan drove hard, and as per usual took the single at electric speed, then called Steve Waugh for the second. For Bevan, calling and running are almost part of the same motion -- and thus he found himself at the same end as his skipper, who was yelling NO, when Laxman's throw found Bevan out by the length of the pitch. Australia, off the last ball of the 27th over, found itself 121/5 and at that point, India had fully justified its skipper's decision to bowl first.

When a team wins, major faults tend to get papered over, or forgotten. The tragedy is that the faults don't actually go away, being merely swept aside in the euphoria of the win. And when the team loses later, owing to these very flaws, we sit back and wonder why a team that won just recently could stuff up so badly so soon thereafter.

In Sharjah, India in the field has been revealing a flaw that is going to result in many defeats in the months to come. And that is an inability to keep the pressure on. And this revealed itself during the 103 run partnership for the sixth wicket between Steve Waugh and Darren Lehmann.

Both players are top notch batsmen. But that was no reason why India, with five back in the hut for 121, couldn't apply some pressure, especially on the left-handed Lehmann who looked shaky at the start of his innings. Sure, if you have a close set field, a few fours are going to go -- but the pressure would be on the batsmen, more so given the loss of wickets, and that kind of pressure inevitably brings about mistakes. Instead, India went in for the orthodox field you set when the team batting is around 160 in 30 overs for say three wickets.

What I found appalling was that despite the visible evidence that the deep set field was a mammoth, and increasingly costly, error, India did not rectify it right through the remainder of the innings. One statistic will show you what I mean. At the end of 44 overs, Darren Lehmann was on 54 runs off just 48 balls. Astonishingly, at that stage, he had 32 singles. And 29 of them had come in the V -- which means that through his innings, which with that of Waugh turned it round for Australia, he was pushing the ball either to long off or long on, both fielders standing deep, and the batsmen were walking the ones.

I can understand five, even ten of such runs being taken during that phase. But 32 in the space of 48 balls faced -- and still no attempt to cut them off, by bringing the fielders in? A problem with India's cricketing thinking is that the team believes if it is blocking the boundaries, it is doing a good job -- but singles at the rate of one per ball are equally costly, and good batsmen milk them all day long and, when the bowler inevitably errs in line trying to stop the flow of singles, he belts them out of the park.

This is what Lehmann and Steve Waugh did in their association, and I would ascribe to bad field placing the steady accumulation of runs. This time round, India pulled off a win -- on other occasions, it will lose, and it will lose because it never keeps an eye on the singles taken off its bowling.

Steve Waugh finally left to a great catch by Agarkar. Off the last ball of the 43rd, Waugh went for the big hit towards the long on fence, Agarkar, fielding wide at long on, ran flat out towards his left, held it with arms at full stretch in front of him, found the ball pop out and with remarkable presence of mind, kept his eye on it, juggling it while still on the run until he finally tapped it up and held. But before he left, Waugh had played an outstanding innings of 70 off 71, ensuring that the damage of losing early wickets -- and his own role in the Bevan run out -- was compensated for.

Lehmann left soon after, again after a brilliant rearguard knock of 70 off 59 with five fours and a six, when he tried to launch Kumble over long off only to miss out on the timing, getting the bottom of the bat on the slog and finding Sanghvi out on the line on the off side.

Damien Martyn was looking good, again, when after a drive to the sweeper at extra cover, he turned for the second only to be sent back by Warne. The NO, however, was late, and Martyn was caught well out of his ground by Jadeja throwing to the bowler's end.

Before Warne and Fleming saw Australia through to 272 for nine off the allotted 50 overs, Venkatesh Prasad earned his 100th ODI wicket when he capped a superbly incisive spell of bowling through his ten overs with a slower one that Kasprowicz, looking to launch everything into the stratosphere, could only mishit to Kanitkar at long off.

For India, the pick of the bowlers were Prasad, Sanghvi and Kumble. Agarkar was expensive, but a lot of that owed to his injury. And when reading the bowling analysis, I would give due allowance to the fact that all the spinners had more runs taken off them, via the easy singles, than should have been allowed.

For India, the key to the chase lay, I thought, in the first of two unsavoury incidents. This one happened in the fourth over of the innings, Kapra's second, when Tendulkar -- who, from ball one, appeared to be concentrating not on a blitzkrieg but on a long innings -- tried to take his bat out of line of one outside off. The ball came on quicker than the batsman anticipated, hit the bottom edge and flashed narrowly past off stump, for a single to fine leg. As Tendulkar reached the bowler's end, Kapra stood four square in his path and let loose a mouthful. What was said was not clear, but it was apparently enough to provoke Tendulkar, who normally shrugs off such incidents, into giving the bowler a glare and, when something more was said, into a crisp retort.

From that point on, it was noticeable that Tendulkar, even when batting in sedate mode as during the middle of the Indian innings, would change gears whenever Kapra came back into the attack, and go after the quick. "That kind of needless needling is dangerous thing to do to a batsman of Tendulkar's class, it only makes such players more focussed," Ian Chappell, commentating, said at the time.

Ganguly's troubles meanwhile continued. He started off with a series of spanking drives, two of which managed to beat the very strong off cordon set for him. But increasingly, the Australians have worked out how to keep him quiet and, in the process, how to ensure that Tendulkar too stays shackled. Against Ganguly, both Kasprowicz and Fleming resorted to pitching just short, mostly coming round the wicket and angling the ball so that the batsman was forced to play a series of defensive pushes in front of his chest. In the process, Ganguly ends up playing too many dot balls, taking a single off the fourth or firth ball of the over, and keeping Tendulkar away from the business end.

Four such balls in succession, unscored off, from Fleming produced frustration in the batsman and with it, the inevitable error. Finding that he couldn't drive, finding himself unable to rotate strike, Ganguly finally looked to swat his way out of trouble, and pulled at the fifth delivery, again short and on off, without ever getting into position. Moody at mid on didn't need to move to pouch that one.

Mongia was sent up the order again. And again, the combative keeper produced a very good innings, keeping Tendulkar company, rotating the strike, responding superbly to his partner's calling and putting even the normally razor sharp Australian fielding under pressure -- all this spiced with the occasional firm hit to the fence for four.

Mongia finally fell in tame fashion when he tried to run Fleming down to third man, only to get the edge and give Gilchrist an easy take. But before his exit, he had figured in a partnership of 89 runs, had seen India progress to 128 by the 24th over, and ensured that the asking rate never climbed above the 5.5 an over mark.

Sachin meanwhile had raced to his 50 off 47 deliveries. What was notable about Sachin in this innings -- as, in fact, during his knock two days earlier, against the same opposition -- was that having got off to a fast start, he then changed gears and visibly settled down to the long haul.

Azharuddin had been overdue a good score on this tour, and today he produced one when it mattered. In the early stages, he concentrated on nudging the ball into any available gap and hareing off to the other end, allowing Tendulkar to do all the hard work. Then, as the innings progressed and he began getting the ball in the middle again, he opened out to slam five boundaries that helped keep the asking rate within reach and, at the same time, took the pressure off Tendulkar.

This was a very well managed chase. No fuss, no flurry, just calm accumulation that always kept India ahead of Australia's progress in its innings, and within the less than 6 an over required rate.

The progression says it all, really: 28/0 in 5: 44/1 in 10; 75/1 in 15; 105/1 in 20; 129/2 in 25; 154/2 in 30; 178/2 in 35; 209/2 in 40.

In the 37th over, a flicked single had meanwhile taken Sachin to his 15th ODI century off 103 deliveries (add 40 fifties to that). Rather amazingly, the 25 year old finds himself just two centuries short of Desmond Haynes' all time record of 17 100s, and bookies are probably giving short odds on the possibility of his overhauling that mark, in considerably less matches than Haynes needed, within this calendar year.

64 were needed off the last sixty deliveries, and Sachin in one calculated assault put the runs to deliveries ratio in India's favour, as he had done during his innings the other day. The 42nd over, from Warne, produced a blistering straight drive that almost took the umpire's head off, then a classic cover drive. Moody came on in the next over and Tendulkar slammed him straight back over the sightscreen for six. Kasprowicz took over from Warne, and went for six with a superb inside out straight drive that all but punched a hole in the sightscreen.

And then came the first of two horrendous decisions by umpire Javed Akthar. Kasprowicz went round the wicket. The ball pitched outside leg, was angled across, and leaving off. Sachin shaped to slam it over the vacant midwicket region, got it on the pad, and up went the umpire's finger. What is astonishing about it is that the decision was bad not on one, but on two, counts -- for one thing, it was clearly going well past off. For another, it had pitched outside leg, so even if it were likely to cut the middle stump in half, it was still not out.

At that point, 25 were needed off 33 balls with seven wickets in hand. An easy task for the following batsmen, but Tendulkar had apparently set his sights on seeing India through. Thus, for once in his career, one saw him express disappointment at a bad decision... slamming his bat into the turf as he walked away, shaking his head repeatedly. A reaction that hadn't been noticeable even the other day, when an equally bad decision terminated another spectacular innings.

Then came disgraceful incident number two. Fleming kept rapping Azhar on the pads, but each time the batsman was outside the line. The second such strike, and appeal (the ball, again, clearly down leg side) was turned down by Bucknor. Rightly, as the replay showed. Fleming first laughed in disbelief, turning towards the umpire. Then, as Azhar was running past him for the leg bye, he turned and lashed out with his leg, in a footballer's approximation of a volley -- his boot missing Azhar's midsection by very little.

Disappointment at being deprived of a win by some wonderful batting was understandable in the Australians. But that gesture of Fleming's was way beyond any sanctioned expression of disappointment -- in fact, it was downright unsporting, rude, and could damn near have been dangerous had his shoe collided with Azhar's groin.

You don't expect such stuff from an international sportsman -- and such behaviour does no credit to an Australian side that plays hard, but have been good sports throughout.

In the next over, Javed Akthar, who had earlier sent Tendulkar packing, gave Azharuddin out caught behind. The ball from Kapra was angled across, pitched outside leg and kept going. By any yardstick, a wide. Azhar flicked without getting a touch, Gilchrist took and didn't even bother to appeal, Kapra -- more out of exuberance or, more probably, in the bowler's classic ploy to confuse the umpire and keep him from giving a wide, asked the question and Akthar promptly upheld the appeal. Trouble being, Azhar hadn't touched the ball.

12 were needed at that point off 19. And Jadeja and Kanitkar got India within a boundary hit of the ask in the 49th over, before Kanitkar waltzed out to Moody and slammed him through cover for the winning hit (makes a practise of it, doesn't he, hitting a four to win, here as in Dhaka).

India's batting had, with Sachin Tendulkar spearheading and first Mongia, then Azhar giving him great support, pulled off a superb win. But the flaws are there. One hopes that during the relatively slack period ahead, before the team goes to Sri Lanka for the Independence Cup, some attention will be payed to the lapses.

Simply because the side has talent -- it is time some care is taken to back that talent with an ounce, at least, of professionalism. And a pennyworth of thought thrown in to the basics wouldn't go amiss either...

Meanwhile, Sachin Tendulkar's fairytale -- a match winning century on his 25th birthday, with an overflowing crowd cheering him to the rafters -- ended with that drive around the ground in the Opel Astra...

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