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One man army wipes out Aussies

Before this tournament, I figured that it would take a supernatural innings by Sachin Tendulkar to defeat the Aussies.

Halfway through the game, Sachin had scored 141 in even time, and hauled India out of the jail they were in at 7/2 with Azhar and Ganguly back in the hut, and propelled the side to a score of 307 in the allotted 50 overs. To put that in perspective, Australia's highest score on the chase, thus far, was 289/4 when they defeated New Zealand in the World Cup quarters. So this meant that to win, the Aussies would need to score more than they ever have in a one day game, chasing.

But halfway through the Australian innings, it began to look like they would do just that -- Ricky Ponting was playing anchor, Mark Waugh was playing with silken grace, India's vulnerability in the fifth bowler slot was showing with Robin Singh proving innocuous.

So Sachin steps in again -- and takes 4 for 38, to finish off the game. There are times when you begin to think the guy ain't human, and this was one of those times.

There are times, too, when you begin to wonder what India will do without Sachin Tendulkar -- but that perhaps will wait for another day.

India went in with the extra batsman in Rahul Dravid. Australia, which on Monday was playing Test cricket in Pakistan, came in with a problem, Glenn McGrath ruling himself out of the key match with injury. This forced Australia to bring in Michael Kasprowicz, completely short of match practise, into the bowling lineup to partner Damien Fleming.

Steve Waugh won the toss. Ironically, thus far, captains winning the toss had elected to bat first, and ended up on the losing side. Waugh reversed the trend, inserting India. "They have chased well against us recently, so we decided to put them in, not play to their strength," said Waugh in the post-toss briefing. Obviously, Sachin Tendulkar spearheading an Indian chase was not something the Australian captain cared to risk.

The insertion almost paid unexpected dividends. Ganguly's dismissal was rather fortuitous, the batsman flicking at a bad ball down the leg side, his eagerness to take full toll causing him to overhit, and end with the edge to the keeper, who went yards to his right to hold a superb catch.

Azharuddin promptly upped himself in the batting order, coming in ahead of Rahul Dravid -- a move I have never understood, frankly. For one thing, Azhar is always more dangerous against the slightly older ball, when the bowlers are not getting quite as much swing and seam and bounce. And for another, pushing Dravid down the order makes little sense, as an anchor-type player is of no use anywhere other than in the number three position. However, it was Azhar who came -- and went, flicking across the line before he had guaged the pace of the ball, to be completely beaten by the slower one from Fleming and trapped in front.

Seven down for two when Dravid came in to partner Tendulkar. A solid partnership of 140 runs later, India were well and truly out of the woods, having gone at 19/2 in 5, 42/2 in 10, 84/2 in 15, 107/2 in 20, on to 164/3 at the end of the 30 over mark.

The two batsmen played in their contrasting styles. Sachin, from ball one, seemed focussed on getting his third successive hundred against the Australians (if you discount that unrecognised outing in Kuala Lumpur). He played within himself, waiting for the vulnerability and capitalising on it, but holding himself back when the bowling was good. Thus, Kasprowicz, whose rust showed in the way he constantly overstepped, was put under the hammer as Sachin blazed fours on both sides of the wicket but when first Fleming, then Brendan Julian, bowled a good length and line, the batsman settled down to work the ball around.

Dravid, meanwhile, concentrated on holding his end up, taking the singles, letting Sachin do the scoring. And his biggest contribution to that partnership, to my mind, was the fact that he took away from Sachin one big worry, of a continued collapse, letting the master batsman concentrate on doing what he does best.

His exit was, in a way, perfectly timed -- the best place for Jadeja to make his appearance is around the 30, 35 over mark, since there are few better finishers in the game today. Jadeja took a while to get some kind of rhythm going, but that didn't really matter as, at the other end, Sachin was in cruise control. India went from 184/3 in 35 to 225/3 in 40 -- by which time, Jadeja too was set. The result, a sudden acceleration that saw the score spurt to 279/3 at the end of the 45 over mark. During this point, Jadeja's innovation was the perfect counterpoint to Tendulkar's all round mastery as the two matched each other stroke for stroke.

For the life of me, I can't see what there is in that score for the batting side to panic -- on the contrary, I would think it would be the bowling side that would have been under pressure. But India, as so often before, suddenly lost the plot, with a spate of run outs, false shots and just plain mindless batting, to completely underutilise the last 5 overs. This brings into focus something I've had to mention before -- unless the Indian bowlers are given plenty of net practise, you can't really expect them to do much out there. And the swing and miss stuff that went on was sufficient indication that the bowlers were not quite there when it came to batting in the death. India ended on 307 -- but given the platform it had, that score was a good 15, 20 runs short of what it could have had in its allotted overs.

For Australia, there were two big problems -- one was Kasprowicz (though to his credit, he was responsible for two superb throws that took out first Sachin, then Jadeja). The other was the lack of one penetrative spinner to bowl the latter overs -- Brad Young was never going to do it for them, and Michael Bevan, Darren Lehmann and Mark Waugh are, at best, irregulars. Makes you wonder just why the selectors figured that Stuart McGill wasn't good enough for this side, doesn't it? This lack of penetration, which meant the Indians, despite being two down for nothing, cruised through the middle overs, really took the game away from them.

India made the worst start possible when, in successive overs, first Robin, then Dravid, failed to hang on to hard chances given by Gilchrist off Agarkar. Around this time, the ground fielding too had a ragged look to it, and the indications were that Azhar would have one more opportunity to say "We bowled and fielded badly" at the end of a match.

Australia batted itself into an increasingly commanding position thanks to the mastery of Mark Waugh -- who, today, was in what looked like an unstoppable mood. He is never as obviously dominating as Tendulkar, but there is a silken grace to his strokeplay, an inevitability to the flow of runs off his bat, that has the fielding side looking rather helpless.

Ponting wasn't as fluent as he can be, but he settled down nicely to anchor one end up, while Mark Waugh flowed at the other. Australia thus went from 25/0 in 5, to 55/1 in 10, 84/1 in 15, 106/1 in 20 and, even at the halfway mark, had the game entirely in control.

If ever there is a post mortem of this defeat in the Aussie camp, the coroner's verdict will probably read "Death by suicide" -- and that report, further, will indict Ponting and Mark Waugh as the main culprits.

Ponting was just getting the measure of Sunil Joshi, when he lost his cool and went for the one swing to leg too many. It's happened before -- earlier, when he was facing Harbajan Singh. This time, having clubbed Joshi superbly to the fence, he sought a repeat. Joshi bowled the next fuller in length, and Ponting played all over it.

Steve Waugh promoted Julien in the batting order, looking for a few lusty hits that would bring down the asking rate. And the batsman, with a career total of 13 runs and a highest of 11 -- not inspiring stats, those -- did just what his captain wanted, with a six and a four off Joshi that seemed to take the pressure right off. So what Mark Waugh thought he was doing when, in the same over, he charged wildly down the wicket, and went on his knee to play a cross batted, ugly looking heave to leg, I'll never figure out. The uncharacteristic shot had him stumped, and from that point on, India had the odds back in its favour.

The only problem still remaining for India was Robin Singh who, as always on batting tracks, looked entirely innocuous in the fifth bowler's slot. Enter, left, Tendulkar -- for a display of thoughtful, intelligent bowling that, if anything, outdid his own batting performance. Seeing that there was turn in the wicket, Tendulkar began bowling leg breaks -- and when he found in Bevan and Lehmann two left-handers confronting him, he promptly switched to off breaks. It was like he was in some kind of zone -- whatever he did, was precisely what he needed to -- and as the wickets tumbled, as the crowd roared on each dot ball, as Azhar suddenly found himself in the luxurious position of not needing to hold back Srinath and Agarkar and Kumble for the very end, the game slid completely out of Australia's grasp, batsman after batsman succumbing to the need to press the accelerator to the floor against bowling that really did not permit extravagant strokeplay.

Srinath was impressive each time he bowled. Kumble was miserly. Agarkar, after a so-so first spell, came back superbly in a late second spell with the perfect line and length. Joshi was hit about -- but to his credit, he kept his nerve, kept attacking, kept tempting the batsmen and took out the two big ones, doing just what an attacking bowler is supposed to do.

But when you get right down to the bottomline, there was just one man -- Sachin Tendulkar. First with the bat, then with the ball, he proved too good for the opposition. As Steve Waugh might ask, so what else is new?

Like one of the readers doing expert commentary asked, does Suresh Kalmadi still have anything to say about Tendulkar's lack of commitment?

Tomorrow, Pakistan take on the West Indies, the winner to move into the semis to face India. Should be quite a match -- which reminds me, we are sorry the commentary kept crashing today. It was simply that though we did think there would be enormous interest for an India match, we didn't think it would be quite as intense as it turned out to be.

So we are shifting servers around -- with the result that we feel confident of giving you interruption free commentary, right through what remains of what is turning into a crackerjack competition. Stay tuned.

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