India wins Dhaka inaugural
India won the first game of the Bangladesh Independence silver jubilee Cup in Dhaka when it defeated the hosts in a surprisingly tight game, winning by four wickets with just 10 deliveries to spare.
A fighting performance by Bangladesh, and a shockingly sub-standard performance by India with ball and bat, and in the field, were the highlights.
Azharuddin, winning the toss, put the opposition in on a slow paced track in conditions ideal for seam bowling, and the Indian opening bowlers Javagal Srinath and Debashish Mohanty seized the advantage when they reduced the batting side to 22/4 with some incisive swing and seam bowling.
By this stage, both Mohanty and Srinath had bowled seven overs apiece. While expert opinion -- expressed in the press box and on television -- held that both bowlers should have been continued with in the search for more wickets, India opted instead to rely on its support bowlers. And Bangladesh wriggled off the hook thanks in considerable part to their main batsman Aminul Islam.
Coming off a bad patch, Islam played a calm, controlled and, eventually undefeated innings that was mainly instrumental in lifting the side to a respectable score of 190, the last wicket falling off the last ball of the 48th over.
Thanks to a delayed start, the game was reduced to a 48-a-side affair.
Remarkably, while Srinath (who took three in his second spell to add to his two in the first spell) and Mohanty struck every time they bowled, the rest of the bowlers looked totally mediocre. Sairaj Bahutule bowled too wide, Hrishikesh Kanitkar's part time off spin proved easy to pick off, Robin Singh was steady at best and Saurav Ganguly pitched too short, permitting the batsmen to pull and slash him effortlessly, square of the wicket on either side. Thus, while eight wickets were shared by the two medium pacers, the remaining two dismissals owed to run outs, as all the other bowlers failed to show the least sign of penetration.
What was even more evident was an apathetic display in the field, with even the usually reliable Azharuddin, Robin Singh and Ajay Jadeja misfielding on several occasions. Perhaps the most symbolic of India's effort on the field came when, with the score on 133/5 in 40 overs, a throw in from the deep found both Bangladesh batsmen at the same end. What looked like the simplest of run outs was, in fact, shockingly converted into a three.
When India batted, Navjot Singh Sidhu managed to run himself out before a run had come up on the board. From the non-striker's end, he raced down as Ganguly flicked square on the on side, the ball going straight to the square leg fielder, who threw in to the non-striker's end. A short while thereafter, Ganguly chased at one outside off, playing a lazy looking drive for the keeper to take the resulting edge, and India were 19/2 at the end of 5 overs.
Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin then took control. With the ball coming on slowly on the pitch and the Bangladesh bowlers -- backed by tight, if unspectacular -- fielding concentrating on line and length, the two Indian batsmen concentrated on working the ball around into the gaps for singles. And without working up too much of a sweat, took the score to 131/2 in 30 overs.
After which, the players changed gears -- from the competent to the inexplicable. Sachin Tendulkar fell to a slower ball which he pushed back to the bowler; Ajay Jadeja scratched around for 34 deliveries for an unconvincing ten runs before stepping away from his stumps and slashing wildly, to miss completely and lose his off stump (during his stay at the wicket with Azhar, India moved from 135/3 in 31.5 to 161/4 in 41.5) and, an over later, Azharuddin chipped one straight down midwicket's throat. Robin Singh and Hrishikesh Kanitkar brought the scores level before a direct throw ran Robin out as he went for the winning run. Kanitkar finally took it home off the second ball of the 47th over, and India collected maximum points.
Not the most convincing of wins, that. More to the point, with the game against Pakistan coming up a day later, experts indicate that if India does not tighten up its act in the field and, more importantly, if India's support bowlers do not show 100 per cent improvement, the side will be severly handicapped in Sunday's game against Pakistan.
Scoreboard
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