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It's Waugh!

Prem Panicker

They used to call him Afghanistan.

'The forgotten Waugh' -- a nickname the younger of the Waugh twins when it took him around 100 first class games to break into the big league.

And when he finally did, the reading was, sure, the guy's sleek, styling, but too laid back for his own good, doesn't try, none of the grit and gumption and fighting qualities of the elder Steve, too liable to just play a few classy shots and get out.

But ever so often, Mark Waugh turns round and silences his critics. A brilliant fighting century to save a Test in South Africa recently, now an equally brilliant unbeaten century to ensure that, perhaps for the first time after days one and two in Chennai, that Australia ended the day's play in a dominant position over the home side.

For one of Mark's classical elegance, today's innings contained perhaps one too many edges (twice off Raju, once off Kumble, another false stroke off Harvinder) besides the occasion, yesterday, when a Raju delivery beat him, rolled back to hit the stumps and left the bails unbroken.

But against that, there was the clinical precision with which he dissected debutant Harbajan Singh's off breaks. The thoughtful way he went after Raju, with a series of inside out drives and lofted ondrives over the ropes that ensured the left arm bowler would not dominate him. The calm assurance with which he played Kumble, getting nip and bounce off a wearing track. And the responsibility with which he shepherded the latter order, to take Australia from 274 at the fall of Ponting, to 400 at innings-end.

And add, to that, the fact that following an upset tummy last night, he was in visible discomfort, a shade winded when running between wickets and rapidly tiring towards the end of his marathon -- and you get some idea of why the half-full audience at the Chinnaswamy Stadium rose to give the stylist a standing ovation as he walked back, undefeated, at the end of the Australian innings.

That ovation perhaps had something of gratitude in it -- for the highlight of Mark's essay was coverdriving of a grace and elegance rarely seen at the highest level. Sort of like a right-handed Ganguly, Mark was sheer silk in the way he moved into line and persuaded, more than hit, the ball through the off field.

Mark Waugh made 153 not out. Good enough -- in fact, it is his highest in Tests (shades of Tendulkar's inability to get past the 200 mark here?). The runs came off just 266 deliveries -- which means that he kept the scoreboard operators busy throughout. And the 13 boundaries and four sixes he hit ensured that the Indian spinners never really settled down on a track that was, on day three, beginning to crumble and offer increased assistance to the tweakers.

Which is not to forget Darren Lehmann. The debutant, this morning, picked up where he left off last evening, with electric footwork negating the flight, and time and again eased Raju, Kumble and Harbajan Singh through the V. Made you wonder why Australia left him at home -- this kind of footwork should make him an automatic pick, preferably at the number three slot, whenever Australia plays a team packed with spinners.

A classic off drive off Raju took him to 52, off 59, on debut, while bringing up the 100 partnership off just 140 balls. Harbajan Singh, however, took him out immediately thereafter, with an off spinner tossed up on middle to which Lehmann pushed forward, the bat-pad finding Laxman at short square leg.

There have been rare flashes of Ponting's potential on this tour, but today was definitely not his day. Kumble, who seemed a shade off colour in the morning, rapidly thought his bowling through and took to tossing it up higher and letting it hit the deck -- at which point he began getting alarming bounce from a good length. Ponting pushed, prodded, poked, and finally groped at one from the leggie that looped, pitched on length just around off, turned away marginally to take the edge, putting Tendulkar in business at first slip.

Ian Healy, normally an obdurate customer, didn't survive too long either -- an ill-advised attempt to cut a ball too close to off saw him give Mongia a good catch. Healy seems a bit of a sucker for this particular shot, against South Africa he tended to drag the ball back on, or nick to keeper, trying to cut too close to his body, and he's been doing it again here, on this tour.

Shane Warne is a feisty kind of batsman. Never mind the situation, never mind the bowling -- the leggie gets a good grip on the bat, flexes his muscles and swings for the lines. Beaten? No problem. Mishit into the outfield and just eluded the fielder? No sweat. Next ball, there he is again, swinging for glory. Entertaining stuff, if not exactly the kind of thing you want to put in the next edition of the coaching manual -- and it all added up for Australia, as the pair added 64 for the seventh wicket.

Warne finally swung once too often, going down the track and attempting to hit Raju out of Bangalore. The ball, turning away, slid off the bat face, ballooned high in the air and Harbajan Singh, who seems a sure fielder in the outfield, held a very well judged catch almost on the boundary line.

The second new ball was way overdue, but Azhar -- the kind of captain spinners dream of -- persisted with his three tweakers, tossing the ball to them in rotation, and Kumble finally obliged, knocking back the last three to end the Australian innings just before tea.

Robertson was the first to go, pushing at a Kumble top spinner for Azhar, fielding by way of change at silly point (helmetless too, never mind the recent incident involving Raman Lamba -- wasn't there something about the ICC making helmets mandatory in close-catching positions?) to grab a sharp reflex catch off his boots. That was catch number 100 for the India captain, to add to his 126 in ODIs, in his 91st Test.

Contrast that with India's premier catcher, Sunil Gavaskar -- 125 Tests, 108 catches, plus another 22 in 108 ODIs.

Mark Waugh lightened the post-lunch somnolence with a lovely clean hit over the sightscreen off Raju to equal his highest Test score, but ran out of partners soon after. Kasprowicz misread one from Kumble that came in with the arm, the batsman playing for the leg break, missing, and being trapped plumb in front.

And soon after, debutant left-hand batsman Adam Dale, completely at sea against the leggie, pushed hard at a flipper on his pads, the ball flew over Laxman's head at very short cover and the fielder, falling backwards in instinctive evasive action, plucked it out of the air to leave Waugh stranded on 153.

While the catches of Azharuddin and Laxman need mention in any classic catches listing, India for once in this series had a really bad day in the field. Kumble twice failed to hold return catches, once off Shane Warne before he had scored. Laxman reacted late to a Mark Waugh slash and put him down at first slip. And to compound the confusion, Azharuddin kept padding the deep field at the expense of the close in cordon -- thus, time and again, edges went precisely where the regulation close cordon for spinners would have held them.

All rather unlike the recent Indian efforts in the field, makes you wonder if maybe the side is just fractionally relaxing in the mind, thanks to being two up in the series.

The bowling was, on the day, like the curate's egg -- good in parts. Kumble, with his 11th five wicket haul of his career (his second of the series) signalled his comeback rather emphatically. Harbajan Singh took two on debut, and showed enough promise to be rated a hot prospect for the future. And Raju was, well, Raju -- the better he bowled, the more he beat the bat, the more edges he got, the more his frustration mounted. He could with profit spend the time between this outing and the next shopping around for a good lucky charm -- whatever he's using now was probably bought at one of those seconds sales.

India, heading the tourists by 24 on the first innings, began with Sidhu and Laxman. Taylor brought Warne on in the seventh over, and Sidhu promptly went berserk. The second ball of the leggie's first over was clubbed straight back over Warne's head for six. Ball three was swept for four. Ball five saw Sidhu down the track, wafting it over mid off for four more.

The thing with Sidhu is, once he gets into top gear, he doesn't know how to ease off. In the next over, he went after Adam Dale -- two cuts, and an on drive, fetched three more fours, Laxman joining in with a classical cover drive for four more in the over.

It was obvious that the Indian approach to this innings would be to play strokes freely -- a mindset that saw Laxman fall cheaply yet again. This time, he danced down to Warne, looking to hit him over mid off, the ball turned more than he expected, took the bottom of the bat and climbed down mid off's throat.

Against Sidhu, Warne went on a different tack. Going around the wicket, he kept bowling a good foot and a half to two feet outside leg, turning the ball in from out of the rough. And Sidhu kept sweeping at him and missing. Warne was obviously looking for an encore of the first innings when he got Sidhu bowled round his legs -- and the batsman, never one to resist a challenge from the spinners, seemed hell bent on erasing that memory. He would have been better advised to ease off, though, because the very fury of his sweeping -- and his very obvious irritation at Warne's line -- ensured he kept missing with the stroke, till finally one climbed off his glove into Healy's hands to give Warne wicket number two.

Rahul Dravid was in anchor mode till, for some reason, he got ambitious -- attempting to cut off the back foot at one from Robertson very close to off stump, the batsman found himself cramped for room and ended up top-edging to the keeper, and suddenly, India were three down with just 92 on the board.

Azharuddin, in next, put his head down to play out time while Tendulkar, yet again, demonstrated his gift of shot selection. Defensive to anything that was good in line and length, he picked the bad ball quickly to slam to the fence, and was looking good on 27 (his strike rate spoilt somewhat by determined defense to three overs following Dravid's departure) at close.

Seen overall, the most interesting thing about this particular Test has been the fact that both sides have got runs at a fair clip -- 923 runs in three days(270 overs). And it is this that turns what could have been a dull game around, raising visions of an exciting last couple of days.

At the end of day three, the pitch really holds the answers. Warne was turning it square from outside leg, Kumble got extraordinary bounce, Harbajan, Robertson and Raju were making the ball do all but talk, and there are big patches of rough just ahead of the good length spot on either end that will keep the batsmen awake tonight.

India has two options -- one being to sit on its 2-0 lead, and bat safely through tomorrow. The other is to press for runs, try to put somewhere around 350 on the board for Australia as a target, give the tourists around 100, 110 overs to try and get them -- any more runs, or less overs, and the side batting last wont be tempted enough to go for it -- and try and bowl them out on an increasingly spin-friendly track.

For Australia, there really is just the one option -- attack flat out, look to strike hard and often and bowl the home side out for as low a score as possible, so that it is faced with an attainable target in the fourth innings.

Could it be that the hype merchants will finally get it right -- and this game will resolve into the Sachin Tendulkar versus Shane Warne duel after all?

Three asides in personal vein:

First up, the umpire officiating with David Shepherd in this game is V K Ramaswami, not Parthasarathy as I wrote yesterday. I apologise for the error.

Another apology of sorts, relating to the upcoming ODI triangular featuring India, Australia and Zimbabwe. I will be on leave, to attend some ritual ceremonies connected with the first anniversary of my father's death, between March 30-April 5, and therefore will not be able to provide either live coverage, or match reports, of the first three games.

And finally, a request for enlightenment: There seems to be some debate about the use of the word googly in connection with an off-spinner. Which cues this SOS to readers: do let me know the right term to use for the wrong one as bowled by an off spinner.

I have already received two suggestions. One is the 'Chinaman' -- which would, I suspect, offend a certain Sir Garfield Sobers.

The other is 'arm-ball'. Which I would accept, only it brings up a bit of a problem with nomenclature for another kind of delivery favoured by offies. This is the one where the offie releases the ball fractionally before he twirls his fingers in the spinning action. Batsmen reading the bowler off the hand tend to be deceived into thinking a regulation off break is on the way -- the ball, however, goes straight through with the arm. The result, the batsman plays inside the line, and either gets the edge or finds it clipping off. Saqlain Mushtaq in recent times has made a sort of speciality of this one, and the way I understood it, this is called the arm ball.

Could be wrong, often am. But the question remains, what do we call an off spinner's wrong 'un?

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