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Proteas make it to the finals

South Africa taking on Sri Lanka was always going to provide enough fun and games -- then the weather stepped in, and decided to add its own little twists to the drama. The result? A match that went on a completely unpredictable track, to yield a result opposite to the one I anticipated.

It was a match up of captains, wasn't it? Ranatunga, being rated the best one day helmsman in the business. Cronje, rated the best leader of men on a cricket field. (Given the contradiction there, it is obvious different blocks of people are doing those different ratings -- equally obvious that a certain Mark Taylor might have a quibble or two about it, but that's another story).

Anyways, for both skippers, the calculations began before the match could even start, as overnight rains and early morning drizzle made things iffy at the outset. Ranatunga, in fact, had his men practising the bowl out, obviously believing in being ready for any eventuality. Given the organisers' need to get in a result today, in view of the tight schedule, a game of some sort was always going to be on, and I guess spectators must count themselves lucky they got to see a decent sized encounter, rather than the 15-overs a side or worse, the bowl out, that at one time looked on.

40 overs a side was the verdict at the outset -- achieved by ignoring an outfield that resembled, at least in some places, the Loch Ness monster's spiritual home. The pitch was hard and true, though, and both captains were of a mind to decide the match through conventional cricket rather than the bowl out, so that was how the organisers went.

There was much discussion, in course of the live commentary on our site, about whether Arjuna Ranatunga had blundered big time by electing to field first on winning the toss. The argument advanced was that when you know you are going to have rain interruptions, and thanks to Duckworth-Lewis, perhaps a crazy revision of your target, why risk batting second and adding to your own problems?

I think Ranatunga got it right, though -- for one thing, South Africa's strength was obviously with the bat, so why play to it by making them bat second? Second, given the rain, given that conditions were still overcast, the odds were that the bowlers would have helpful conditons early on, which meant that if properly exploited, you could keep the target down to within manageable limits. And finally, given the inexperienced look of the South African bowling lineup, Ranatunga was right in backing his batsmen to get to any target the Proteas managed to set with the bat.

Things happened differently -- but, as we will get to in a bit, that was not something Ranatunga had much control over.

Since the entire commentary is being appended on the main home page, we wont bore you with the blow by blow here, limiting this to the broad brushstrokes. And the first item of note is the bowling of Chaminda Vaas. His name rarely figures when they talk of premier fast bowlers, but the more I see of the guy, the more I can't help thinking that he is up there with the best of them, especially in the one day variety. He has an instinctive knack of reading the wicket, and then doing exactly what needs to be done on it, and Sri Lanka with him leading the attack look an entirely different side to when he is away.

Item two on my mind is the batting of Jacques Kallis. Experts rate Darryl Cullinan as the most fluent of the South Africans, they shower high praise on the ability of Cronje and the recently acquired dependability of Jonty Rhodes, not to mention the flamboyance of Gary Kirsten. But in my book, the best Protean batsman right now is Kallis. He's got temperament enough for ten men, for starters. He is a superbly organised batsman -- well balanced at all times, everything in line, weight transfer either to the front foot or back immaculate, and has all the shots in the book. And, just to sweeten the kitty, he is equally at home to pace and spin -- all of which make him a number three par excellence in either form of the game.

Today, he was in a zone. And in the final analysis, it was he who made the difference between a Protean win, and the next flight out to Jo'burg. It was a classy innings, calm, unflurried, always played with an eye to the percentages. And the standout feature was his batting against Muralitharan. Once let the Lankan offie get on your back and he becomes unplayable -- but today, Kallis demolished him in a way I haven't seen anyone else manage, not lately. Time and again, he was down on his knee, taking the ball from off and even outside, getting under it and using a free swing to power it over the ropes on the onside. Frustrated by the sixes being hit off him, Murali changed to round the wicket -- a good ploy, because he would now be angling the ball across and away from the right hander, then spinning it back into him. Only, Kallis had his answer ready -- he squared up a bit more, so that when he went on his knee he was shutting the angle of the slant, and the same sweep shot produced the same result -- soaring sixes over midwicket. That was really batting with an attitude, and South Africa owed its eventual total of 240 in the allotted overs almost solely to his presence through to the end.

For Sri Lanka, it was a patchy performance in the field -- the slippy outfield producing more misfields in the day than you see from the islanders in a month of ODIs. Vaas and Zoysa were impressive with the new ball, and Upul Chandana the most impressive of the spinners -- the latter bowling a very intelligent line and length, going wide of the crease to get the sharp angle in to middle and leg, spearing them through flat and fast onto the pads and proving the most difficult to get away.

I reckon Ranatunga made a rare mistake while handling the bowlers, in that he didn't utilise Vaas, in particular, to the fullest. When he came back to bowl the last over of the innings, he showed with six indipping yorker-length balls on the trot just why he is such a handy bowler to have around. Six runs came off that final over, and it is hard to escape the conclusion that had he been used earlier, Ranatunga could have shaved a good 10, 12 runs off the eventual total.

The break, and the rain, came together. When the dust cleared, Sri Lanka was looking at 34 overs max, and a target of 224 (we won't go into the logic of reducing five overs, but only 16 runs, here, that's a much-flogged horse on this and other sites).

But the real rider was that when the Lankan openers walked out to bat, they did so in a light-to-medium drizzle -- which brought into play another variable. What if the rain intensified? If South Africa were able to bowl 15 overs, the result at that point would stand, if not in the ICC record books, at least as far as this tournament is concerned. And Duckworth-Lewis stipulated that at the end of 15 overs, Lanka had to have scored 118 to win, if the match were called off at that stage.

The actual ask was much simpler -- just over 6 an over, which for the Lankan batting lineup was ancient territory. Their classic strategy has always been to bring down the ask with some big hitting during the field restrictions-period, then coast through the rest of the chase. However, here they were in overdrive, and I for one would love to know just how much that 15-over target played in their minds.

Whatever the reason, the Lankans deserved to lose this one, because of the shocking batting of their superstars. Kaluwitharana is always an iffy customer at the crease, rather in the Afridi mould -- but Jayasuriya surely should have matured into more than a muscleman, by now? His, though, was the most atrocious shot of the match -- well before Elworthy bowled, he had taken position three feet wide of the leg stump, muscles clenched and gaze fixed on the hoardings over extra cover, through which he evidently intended to drill the ball. Elworthy may not have the experience of Donald, Pollock and Klusener, but even the greenest tyro, seeing the batsman standing well wide of the stumps, is going to angle a yorker in to middle, and when Jayasuriya flailed at it, his bat wasn't even in striking distance, so far had he gone across to leg.

Aravinda compounded Jayasuriya's folly by launching a hook at a short ball that was outside off and going further away off the seam. He is a classy enough batsman to know that hooking from outside off is always chancy -- more so when the bowler is seaming the ball away, as Elworthy was doing consistently at that point. So why the one shot in the book calculated to bring about his downfall? Panic at the DL-prescribed ask at the end of 15? Or the arrogant desire to finish the match off with a few hefty blows? You tell me.

The one player who really got a bad one was Arjuna Ranatunga -- Hansie Cronje slanting one across him, the Lankan skipper going for his bread and butter steer to third man, completely taken aback by the ball standing up off a length and going to the keeper off the splice of the bat. An unplayable ball at any point, that one had Ranatunga walking off with a self-deprecating smile.

In between, Jonty Rhodes reminded us that while the rest of the world's cricketers field the ball, he does something else. The ball in question was a yorker on off and middle stump, Vaas (sent in as pinch hitter, presumably with Messers Duckworth and Lewis very much in mind) blocked it, the ball took the thick outer edge and flew to about five, six feet short of point -- and very low at that. Every other fielder in the world would have stood in place -- more so on this kind of outfield -- waiting to ride a possible bad bounce and cut off runs. Not Jonty -- he launched himself forward, literally flying the few intervening feet parallel to the ground, got his fingers under the ball and came up smiling.

Who said man hasn't found the key to self-powered flight?

Hansie Cronje may not have, here, too good a bowling lineup. But he has smarts -- and an instinctive grasp of just when, and how, to tighten the thumbscrews. He did that here to superb effect. The moment the two heavy hitters, and the Lankan skipper, went back into the hut, Cronje pulled his men into the circle and completely dried up the singles -- and then sat back and waited for the rest of the Lankan batsmen to self-destruct. Which they inevitably, and most obligingly did.

For the Proteas, a fine win against the odds -- and for the younger players, it will be really a big morale boost, since they had pulled it off, by over 90 runs what is more, against the World Cup holders without Gary Kirsten, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock and Lance Klusener in the ranks. Whichever team makes it to the final to take on this outfit will now have to content with the adrenalin high that kind of result produces in a team.

Which brings us to tomorrow's game. The big question mark is the weather, and what its influence will be -- the one unpredictable that could throw all kinds of predictions out the window.

But broadly, assuming a 50-over game, I would think India should be the favourites to win -- and for once, Sachin Tendulkar can have a relatively bad day without really altering that result.

The reason for that seeming flight into wild optimism is the nature of the West Indies attack -- the likes of Arthurton, and Hooper, so lethal against Pakistan the other day, are liable to be rather ineffectual against the Indian batting. For one thing, the Pak batsmen gifted away their wickets by stepping out of line and trying to hit square -- whereas, to that same line of attack the Indians are more prone to stepping inside the line and playing in front of the wicket. The Windies attack has a gaping hole in the middle, and that could prove the decisive factor in their fortunes.

Just to make matters doubly sure, though, I would love to see a change in the lineup -- Ajit Agarkar sitting this one out, Venkatesh Prasad coming in as replacement.

It rained today. Whether it rains later tonight or no, there will be moisture under the surface. And thanks to that, some seam movement early on for the bowlers. Agarkar, in his first spells, has a distressing tendency of pitching too short (which is not to take away from his ability to get wickets, or even to bowl a classy second spell) -- an invitation to riot, at the hands of batsmen like Philo Wallace. Prasad's forte, though, is the fuller length, and the late movement away off the seam -- which is why I like him for the job of taking out the openers, both of whom drive without really getting to the pitch. And even against the left-handers, his natural ball is the one coming in to the batsman -- just the ticket, especially for someone like Lara who tends to drive with the bat and body well and truly divorced from each other. Again, Agarkar is faster than Prasad -- which, for the Windies batsmen, is just how they like it.

And while on that, it really would be criminal if Saurav Ganguly weren't to bowl, in these conditions, in the middle overs tomorrow -- his natural ball is the one that leaves the right hander, he has the ability to bring it back the other way, and I would think he was a natural to go round the wicket, cramp the Windies southpaws with his stock ball and mix things up with the odd one running off slip-wards.

The other question relates to the off spinner -- should Nikhil Chopra play against a side loaded with southpaws? My gut reaction is no -- I mean, southpaws dont just roll over and play dead simply because the person bowling is an alleged offie. Chopra is one -- an alleged offie, I mean, but way short of what an 'off spinner' of quality really should be. Besides, he is far too raw to bring into the side for such a key game.

In passing, could we have an attacking field set for Lara as soon as he appears at the batting crease, please, Azhar? I mean, I know you are too much of a gentleman to kick a guy when he's down, but this is one time when it would be nice if you could show some teeth for a change.

Lara ain't superman -- the mere sight of him does not mean that all fielders should scatter to the boundary line, like serfs when the king comes out of the gates on a royal visit. Rather, Lara is a batsman always fallible early in his innings and now, thanks to a personal low, even more so. Let him settle and stroke the ball out to the deep fielders, and India might as well find out the first available flight back home. Put pressure on the guy with a slip and gully in place to the quicker men, or a slip and a bat pad square on the on to the left arm slow, or silly point and short square to Kumble, pull mid off and mid on in and odds are, he will go dancing down to try and hit into the empty acreage, and make a meal of it.

What does all this remind you of? Harbajan Singh? Yeah, well, as of now, he is packing his bags, readying for the ICC's preferred vacation spot for sub-continental off spinners -- the Fred Titmus bowling school in England. Boarding and lodging on the house, folks, and amusement thrown in for free -- I mean, if the sight of Titmus teach spin while Prasanna looks on isn't enough for unconfined mirth, what is?

Oh well.

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