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Basin Reserve lights up

Prem Panicker

The real fun of Test cricket was very much in evidence on day four of the India-New Zealand game at the Basin Reserve. Lots of swings in fortune either way, events going contrary to accepted doctrine and, at the end of it all, the stage set for a good finish on the final day.

On a pitch baked brown by the sun over the last three days and with the famous Wellington north-westerly beginning to show signs of kicking in, conventional theory would have had it that the first hour of play would see the bowlers dominate, with the batsmen slowly coming into their own in the latter sessions.

Forget theory – Tendulkar came out blazing, apparently having decided that the less than conducive conditions required a counter-attack. The Kiwis opened with Doull and Vettori, the former being a bit up and down, the latter lasting just two overs before Tendulkar took him out of the attack with a series of boundaries. Wiseman replaced the leg spinner and, despite being carted first ball over midwicket for a four by Tendulkar, struck later in the same over when he had Ganguly reaching forward to one on middle turning to off, the ball richocheting off pad and bat to put silly point in business.

From then on, it was the batsmen all the way as Azharuddin, carrying his good form of the first innings into this second essay, joined Tendulkar in the middle. The roles appeared clearly defined – Tendulkar going for the bowling while Azhar dropped anchor, rotating strike with nice placements and letting his partner do most of the hard work. 52 runs came in the first hour, and India at lunch had added 111 to the overnight total in two hours of play for the loss of just the one wicket.

In the process, Tendulkar had got to his 17th Test hundred in fine style, dancing down to lift Vettori, inside out, over the bowler’s head for a six to get to the landmark. At the break, thus, India looked well on course to put up a lead in excess of 250 – which, in these conditions, would have proved very very daunting.

And then the players came back from the break, and the game flipped on its head. Dion Nash, whose absence from the bowling crease in the morning was a shade puzzling (his figures at the end of day three had read 6-4-7-1, which surely called for him getting the ball sometime in the morning) was brought on – and the all rounder, having a very good game here, struck first ball when he pitched one just outside off and on a fullish length, drawing Tendulkar into the drive, the ball seaming away late to feather the edge to slip.

Immediately thereafter, Nayan Mongia got a beauty from Simon Doull, bowling with a lot more purpose in the second session – the ball was pitched off, seamed away late, took the edge and Fleming, at first slip, dived low to his right to pull off a dilly.

Those two strikes had evened things out for the Kiwis – and then the fielding side swung things decisively in their favour, albeit in fortuitous fashion. Nash bowled Azhar a superb one on middle and off, squaring the Indian skipper up, seaming away and flicking something on the way through. Parore held, the appeal was massive and the umpire, after a very long deliberation, raised his finger. Azhar wandered off looking extremely upset – and the replay confirmed that it was the top of the pad, and not the bat, that the ball had touched going through.

Nash, swinging the ball around and seaming it appreciably off the pitch, had at this stage stunning figures of 4-2-3-2 – a spell that broke the collective Indian back.

That brought Srinath and Kumble together – and for once, the two tailenders played with a lot of application, concentrating on hanging in there against a bowling side that by now was completely charged up. The battle of attrition during this period is best encapsulated by the fact that the two, at one stage, played out 44 balls without scoring a run, the hour after lunch producing a mere 14 for the loss of three wickets.

The second hour after lunch saw the two Indian batsmen continue their fightback. The runs came slowly – but each of them counted, and it was equally important, at that stage, not to get bowled out too quickly and give the Kiwis a whole heap of time to get a very low total.

Kumble finally went to the first false stroke he played – Vettori coming back pitched one in the rough outside leg and turned it in, Kumble went for the sweep, top-edged and put the ball down the throat of backward square.

Nathan Astle struck immediately thereafter, bowling a slow full toss which Prasad wafted right back to the bowler, apparently taken by surprise. And Harbajan Singh, the last man, played – perhaps for the first time in his career – a hook at a McMillan short ball, to find the fielder at backward square, ending India’s innings on 356 all out, setting the Kiwis a target of 213.

One factor that impacted on the Indians – and which could also affect the Kiwis – was the wind, which comes in off the north-west and blows hard enough to have the bails off pretty much once an over, at the least. When the batsman is facing the bowler coming with the wind, he has to adjust for the extra pace – and vice versa when he is batting at the other end, with the added disadvantage that a stiff wind in your face can bother you quite a bit, bringing tears to the eyes. And what it does to the backlift is something only the guys out there could tell you about.

New Zealand, in the second essay, walked into trouble in the very first over – Srinath making one kick nastily off a length, giving Bell no chance of taking evasive action, the ball going off the splice to Rahul Dravid at short square leg.

Stephen Fleming and Mathew Horne mounted a recovery of sorts, taking the score to 42 before Kumble, switching to round the wicket, banged one into the rough outside the left hander’s off stump, turned it in appreciably and Fleming, misjudging, let it go only to see it come back and thud into the stumps.

Srinath meanwhile struck another blow of sorts when another fast lifter thudded into Nathan Astle’s bat handle, jamming his fingers painfully against the wood and, after some onfield treatment failed to assuage the pain, forcing him to retire hurt.

Almost immediately thereafter, Kumble, who bowled with the kind of relish he hasn’t been showing for a while, produced the extra fast flipper. A similar delivery had bowled Mathew Horne in the first innings – this time, he pushed his foot out at it, defending down the wrong line to take it on the pads bang in front of the stumps.

And the day’s tale ended with Adam Parore – who, for a batsman of such class, has looked strangely out of sorts in both innings – falling to a superb piece of cricket. The Kumble top spinner was on middle and leg, Parore played off his pads and took two initial steps down the track looking for the run. Dravid, at a very close short square leg, produced a superb stop and in the same action, flicked the ball back to catch the batsman out of his ground.

McMillan and nightwatchman Paul Wiseman saw play through to stumps – the former living aggressively, if a shade dangerously. McMillan, with his ability to counterattack, could in fact hold the key to the Kiwi hopes, the target being short enough for one barnstorming innings to help pull off a win. And with Dion Nash still to come, not to mention Astle provided the injury is not too serious, the stylish strokeplayer certainly does not lack for company.

At the end, the Test is as interestingly poised as you could hope for – the Kiwis don’t have too much more to get but on the flip side, they’ve lost four, a frontline batsman is injured, and though there is an entire day ahead (90 overs left to play), the going looks far from easy.

For the Indians, the plus points would be the surprising lift Srinath seems to produce out of even this fourth day pitch, a factor that is obviously rattling the batsmen a bit; Prasad’s late moving leg cutters which he rediscovered to very good effect in a testing spell late into the fourth day and, above all, the rediscovered fizz in Kumble’s bowling, which none of the batsmen on view thus far has been able to negotiate with any semblance of assurance.

One thing’s for sure – whatever the result on day five, it certainly promises high drama.

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