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Sachin ton puts India on top

Prem Panicker

For connoisseurs of trivia, the last time the two sides met at the M A Chidambaram, the last innings target was 347. That time, it was the Australians who declared, on the morning of the fifth day, after batting just one over. And in heat similar to the 37 degrees obtaining here, the Test ended in a tie.

Mark Taylor and his men, this time round, would perhaps gladly settle for a similar result here, at the end of a fourth day of the first Test on which the unofficial world champions found themselves outplayed in a fashion rarely if ever matched in recent times.

Set to make 348 in 105 overs, the visitors ended the day with three frontline batsmen back in the hut for just 30. And that is a precarious position to find oneself in, because it shuts out, totally, any chance of forcing a win and dictates that the remaining batsmen spend all of tomorrow, fully 90 overs, on the defensive.

And it is when you are forced to defend for an extended stretch of time that mistakes proliferate -- ask the Indians, who in recent times have made a habit of it.

It is of course all hypothesis at this stage, but I suspect that the implications of today's play will have a huge impact on the two Tests to follow. And right upfront, the home side, after putting up 418 runs for the loss of only four wickets on a turning track at the M A Chidambaram, will be inclined to go in for turners in Bangalore and Calcutta as well -- the tendency being to think that the home side can handle the Aussie spinners better than the visitors can handle Kumble, Raju and Chauhan.

But that is all backroom stuff -- upfront, on the playing field, the day began with Sidhu, batting 55, and Dravid, batting 18, taking India on from 100/1, off 34 overs.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald at the end of day one of the Test, had some snide things to say about the Sikhs lacking grey matter, and Navjot Singh in particular alternating between prods and slogs.

The temptation to be uncharitable is strong here. Roebuck is used to watching English batsmen, whose technique against spin, especially as purveyed by Shane Warne, consists for the most part of either looking baffled as deliveries spin past the bat, or pushing it into the hands of the nearest fielder. Which, of course, makes it hard for friend Roebuck to recognise good footwork and strokeplay when he sees them.

But asides aside, Sidhu, who started as confidently as he had batted the previous evening, added only 9 to his overnight score before an attempted sweep at Robertson ballooned the ball into the hands of Ricky Ponting at midwicket.

That brought Dravid together with Sachin Tendulkar, for a partnership of 113. And as with Sidhu, Dravid retained the anchor role while his partner made all the running. Sachin, for his part, started relatively quietly, gliding singles and twos till be got into his twenties.

At that point, he appeared to have decided that he had read the wicket well enough to ensure against a repeat of the first innings fiasco. So Tendulkar changed gears -- and for the Australians, the temperature went up a few notches.

It was Robertson who first got the stick -- a pull over midwicket, an ondriven six over wide long on, and another savage pull for four in successive balls forced the offie out of the attack. Sachin turned his attention next to Shane Warne -- and again, a pull off the flipper, two blazing square cuts off the leg break pitched on off stump, and a dance down the track to lift a leg break, inside out, over long off for six pretty much signalled that on the day, Tendulkar was in no mood to be dictated to.

At this point, the Mark Taylor-Shane Warne combine tried a strategy that could have major implications in terms of how the two sides approach the remaining two Tests. With a fine leg, backward square leg, sweeper midwicket, orthodox midwicket and mid on in place, Warne went round the wicket, and began pitching a foot and a half, two feet outside the leg.

Indian batsmen have in the recent past been getting more than their fill of this essentially negative line of attack -- from the Walsh-Chanderpaul combine in the West Indies, followed by the Ranatunga-Jayasuriya-Dharmasena combine in the home series late last year.

It is perhaps understandable when part-time spinners like Chanderpaul and Jayasuriya try it -- but when the man being hailed as the greatest spinner of the century opts for that line, the signal being sent out to the Indian team is that Shane Warne is not confident of bowling an attacking line even on spin-friendly pitches against this batting lineup. And that should do the Indian team's morale a world of good.

Looked at from the other side, though, Taylor presumably knows what he is about. But does a captain really want to tell his star bowler, the man who has won who knows how many Tests for you, that he is not good enough to attack. Do you really want to do that at the start of a series? I'm not too sure.

In the short term, the tactic did produce a result, as Rahul Dravid added one more to his collection of bizarre ways to get out in. A Warne delivery pitched in the rough way outside leg stump, jumped and turned in. Dravid, committed to leaving it alone, found the ball hitting his shoulder, then bouncing on to the back of his bat and lobbing to the keeper, ending his innings on 56, his second fifty of the innings.

That brought Azharuddin out to join Tendulkar. And for the first time that I have seen in quite a while, the normally impeccable Australian fielding wilted in the face of some superbly aggressive running between wickets by the two batsmen. Indicative of the pressure was the fact that the misfields came from the safest of the Oz fielders -- Ponting, Taylor, Blewett and Warne fumbling, and adding to the agony with overthrows.

Tendulkar, who had gone into overdrive during his association with Dravid -- adding to the two sixes off Warne were an off driven six off Greg Blewett, and an ondrive into the stands off Robertson -- kept up the tempo during Azhar's initial tenure at the crease.

It was only after he got into his mid-thirties just after tea, that the Indian skipper, who till then had been struggling to find his touch, took charge -- Warne getting clubbed for an ondriven four, a pulled four, and then an ondriven six in rapid succession.

Tendulkar promptly went into second fiddle mode, allowing his captain to do all the hard work. Azhar obliged, but then succumed to adrenalin overdose against Mark Waugh. Two clubbed drives through the covers got him two fours, then a hefty sweep ended up as a top edge, the ball lobbing to brother Steve at midwicket to end the Indian captain's innings on 64 off 90 deliveries with 8 fours and the one six.

From then on, till Azhar applied the closure leaving the Australians 15 overs to bat in the day, plus the 90 due tomorrow, Tendulkar and Ganguly the declaration with 15 overs to go in the day's play, Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar milked a tiring attack for a further 63 runs.

Tendulkar's innings on the day was a classic. It was all there -- the fierce drives and pulls, the lofted drives on both sides of the wicket, interespersed with a series of the most delicate of late cuts. And all this, with a hamstring strain that hobbled him through the second half of his innings.

When you have an innings like this, it is difficult to sum up its impact, whether in words, or in statistics. Try this -- Sachin got to his 50 with a four that took India to 200. And to his 150 with the four that got India to 400. In other words, exactly half the runs scored while he was at the wicket were off his bat. And more to the point, his blistering rate of scoreplay is what has, in the final analysis, put India in a commanding position.

At the start of the day's play, if anyone had prophesied that India would rattle up 318 runs in just 73 overs, he would have been laughed out of court. But that is precisely what was done, and for that, Tendulkar has to take the palm.

Which brings up an interesting thought -- did the national selectors actually do the side a favour by dropping him from the captaincy? No intention of being facetious here. No intent, what is more, to condone the tactics used to achieve that end. But the net result, as seen by today's innings, has been to reverse Time, to bring back the Sachin Tendulkar of pre-captaincy days. There was no more indecision in his strokeplay, no checked drives, no attempt to balance his natural aggression with uncharacteristic caution. There was, instead, pure, simple, calculated mayhem. And that could be the biggest plus to the side in recent memory.

That, in any event, set the stage for the Australian second innings. And that in turn brings up another item for trivia collectors.

The last time Michael Slater played a Test match, it was at the Firozeshah Kotla in New Delhi, in the one-off Test for the Sunny Gavaskar-Allan Border trophy in 1996. Australia was chasing an eminently attainable target, when Slater chased after a very wide ball and edged to slips, precipitating a collapse that resulted, eventually, in defeat.

He's gone and done it again hasn't he? The sane thing to have done, given that a tired, dispirited side had just 15 overs to survive before stumps, was to have batted calmly, ensured that there was no breakthrough, then spent the rest period before start of play tomorrow to recoup mental energies drained in a day of leather-hunting.

But no, Slater had to try and hit up 348 runs this evening itself -- or so it looked, judging by the way he kept flinging his bat at everything. The result was inevitable -- and it happened when Slater slashed at a wide delivery from Srinath, feet nowhere in line for the attempted hit through cover, and ended up dragging the ball back onto his stumps.

That brought Greg Blewett, back at his number three slot, out into the middle. And more disaster, reminiscent of India's performance against South Africa at Calcutta in late 1996. There, India had an attainable target on a good track, but instead of playing deliveries on merit, the batsmen opted for exaggerated defence -- always a danger on a turning track. Here, it was Blewett's turn to learn that lesson, as he went forward defensive to a short of length flipper from Anil Kumble to give a bat-pad to silly point.

But it is perhaps skipper Taylor who, in any post-Test analysis, will take the bulk of the blame. It was the last over of the day, the Aussie captain only needed to see Kumble through. The pace of run making was not an issue at that point. So what must Taylor do, but launch into an almighty pull at a Kumble flipper -- the bottom edge richoeting, via the pad, to gully to send the skipper back to the hut! That was silly cricket pure and simple, and I suspect there will be some harsh words about it in the Oz media tomorrow.

Speaking of harsh words, there have been some aimed, rather deservingly, at Mohammad Azharuddin for his captaincy in the Australian first innings. The non-employment of Saurav Ganguly (a crime his predecessor was accused of in pretty much every outing), the under-utilisation of Harvinder, the setting of an exaggeratedly defensive field allowing Healy, in company of the tail, to milk singles -- these have been the main blemishes against his leadership on days two and three.

But today, Azhar redeemed himself more than somewhat. For one thing, the collective attitude was can-do. Right from the morning, it was evident that the side had gone in determined to rattle up runs and force the declaration -- nary a suspicion that the team would be content with a draw.

The timing of the declaration was equally perfect. We had in our match report yesterday speculated on getting a lead of around 280, then declaring with at least 10 overs at the tired Aussies -- in the event, Sachin ensured that the lead was higher, and Azhar for his part gave his bowlers a good 15 overs, his declaration setting the visitors 348 in 105 overs being sufficiently challenging to tempt them into going for it. The result -- a back to the wall fight, not to win but merely to survive, for Australia when it resumes tomorrow.

It is not, mind, as if there is only one possible result from here. The pitch does have turn -- but it has slowed down considerably, and batsmen prepared to go either fully forward or back and play on merit will, thanks to the reduced pace off the track, find ample time to adjust their strokes to counter any unexpected pace.

Thus, Australia with the two Waughs, Ponting, Healy, Reiffel and Robertson still to come, can draw. If, that is, they are as mentally tough as they make themselves out to be.

Are they? This time tomorrow, we'll have the answer to that one.

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