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Lanka beat India by 7 wickets

There is about as much resemblance between the Sri Lankan masterclass of 1996 and the team now doing duty in those colours as there is between chalk and choice Camembert. And yet, the Lankans under Jayasuriya etched a 7-wicket win over an Indian team that was essentially unchanged from the one that mauled the same opponents -- at full strength mind you -- in the recent World Cup.

Raises the question, doesn't it? What's wrong? In sum, the answer would be, pretty much everything.

While reporting on the Chennai camp, I remember pointing out that the team was, in the post-Bobby Simpson era, bad to its bad habits. The batting practise of the lower order would have shamed a decent school side; the fielding practise was almost non-existent; the atmosphere was lax to an extreme.

Now consider this: at 35 overs, India are 148/3. Five overs later, India are 171/6. And 180/7 in 45. What story does that tell you? Consider this, too -- when India batted, Sri Lanka effected four run outs, and seemed to hit the stumps from pretty much any point on the ground (could it be sheer coincidence that the Lankans have a specialised fielding coach in Trevor Chappell?). When the Lankans batted, I counted, offhand, at least a dozen close run singles where a direct hit, or even a throw closer to the stumps, would have made the difference.

The last time Bobby Simpson was masterminding an Indian coaching camp -- again in Chennai -- I remember asking him what his basic mantra was, what was the key to a successful team. His response was simple: 'Concentrate on the basics, drill it into the players, and then talent can provide the icing on the cake. But the basics are all-important, ignore those and all the talent in the world can't help you perform.'

I was listening when he said that. I wonder, though -- how many members of the Indian team were?

To get from the general to the specific, the game went as follows: Tendulkar won the toss for the second time running. And on a track that promised indifferent bounce and the prospect of slowing down further as the game wore on, opted to bat first.

From the outset, Tendulkar appeared to be playing well within himself. It could be because, coming off a break, he wanted to play himself back into form. It could be because he decided to play an anchoring role. Whatever, what was noticeable was that he was concentrating on placement, rather than power. At the other end, meanwhile, there was Ganguly. No doubts about this one -- the man is rusty and it's showing. When Ganguly is all there, the most noticeable thing about him is his flowing offside play -- an aspect that was completely missing here. Repeatedly, he struggled to get the ball off the square, and showed every sign of a man needing long sessions in the nets to get his feet moving again.

Tendulkar was lucky to be let off when Suresh Perera, taking over after a wayward first spell by Chaminda Vaas, made one swing away late from line outside off. Sachin went for his favourite punched cover drive, the late swing found the edge, and Jayasuriya -- surprisingly fielding at slip, despite having heavy plaster where he had split the webbing of his left hand, which meant that the wiser course would have been to stand in the outfield, not somewhere where he would have to take sharp chances one handed and risk aggravating the injury -- grassed a sitter.

With Ganguly literally static, India did very well to get to put on a first wicket partnership of 49 off 60 balls. And then came the first of the run outs -- Ganguly getting caught short by a direct hit by Vaas.

That brought Dravid to the wicket, and from ball one, the right-handed number three seemed to be timing it to perfection. In recent times, his running between wickets has also improved enormously, and the second wicket partnership was motoring along, yielding 34 of which Dravid got 22 at close to a run a ball, when he left in a fashion that causes a few worries. In what was a carbon copy of his dismissal against Australia, the number three, with bat well away from body, tried to nudge a ball outside off to third man, and Kaluwitharana flung himself a long way to his right to take a good catch. If the Indian team management has a thought to the long term, they will now take Dravid aside and talk to him about the wisdom of cutting this shot out of his repertoire. For one thing, he has enough legitimate shots to go along at a nice pace, as he showed here. For another, the dab with bat away from body is not part of his cricketing makeup, and he tends to play it badly. And most importantly, India's next big series is the tour of Australia, and Dravid at number three is going to be a vital part of the team as it takes on the likes of Gillespie and McGrath on the bouncy, quick wickets Down Under. The last thing the team needs is for its most solid batsman to develop this ugly dab into a bad habit -- and as any follower of cricket knows, the bad habits you learn in the one day game prove your undoing in the Test arena.

That dismissal was against the run of play. And so was the next, as Jadeja drove Vaas hard to mid off. Sachin, as always, was backing up. The batsman saw the ball going quickly to the fielder -- and, moreover, Muralitharan, at mid off, was attacking, racing in to the ball. So Jadeja yelled NO -- but Murali, in an electric display of fielding, had already picked up and slammed the throw bang onto the stumps before Sachin could recover his ground. His 37, on the day, was uncharacteristically subdued -- yet, barring the dropped chance, it was sound. There is, however, something that might interest trivia buffs. Thus far in his career, Sachin has been out 74 times in the span 31-39 runs (and a further 50 times between 1-9 runs). Is there some lesson in there for the batsman to take note of? Is it perhaps indicative of a tendency to lose concentration as he shifts gear, from the opening phase of his innings into what, in chess parlance, would be the middlegame? Never mind, just a passing thought.

At the end of 30 overs, India were 134/3. Cricketing wisdom holds that if you have wickets in hand, you can double your score from that period on -- which meant India should have been looking at close to 270, the total the team captain said at the toss was what he wanted on the board. As it turned out, they added just 71 more runs in the next 20 overs, for the loss of 5 wickets (if you consider they were 148/3 in 35, the collapse from that point on is even more startling).

Amay Khurasiya, for the second game running, came up with a solid display, keeping Jadeja company in a solid 62-run partnership. And for the second day running, he gave it away just when seemingly set, losing concentration and wafting a rare bad ball from Chandana, on leg and turning away, to the fielder at deep backward square leg (against Australia, the batsman had hit a full toss back to the bowler). You'd be tempted to say that once set, he tends to relax, to stop focussing, to lose the fine edge of his concentration -- if the coach was making notes, he'll be talking to the batsman about this aspect of his play tonight.

Robin Singh's play is always characterised by sound commonsense. There are conditions when he doesn't get going -- but he rarely if ever can be accused of stupid play. This was one of those times. Time and again, he kept going on his knee and looking to swing the ball out onto the onside -- a favourite Robin shot, and no secret to any international opposition. In fact, the minute Robin came in, Sanath Jayasuriya set one fielder at wide long on, another at deep midwicket on the line, a third at deep square leg, covering his three favourite areas. Twice Robin swung in that direction and missed. Third time unlucky, Robin went on his knee and swung Murali, against the turn, unerringly to the midwicket fielder. What was the point, given the evident nature of the trap?

MSK Prasad came in and went again before any of us got a chance to see what kind of batsman he is. Jadeja was on strike, driving through midwicket, there was two there for the taking but Prasad was slow on the turn, and didn't make his ground before the throw came in.

At the other end, Jadeja had been playing a patient, calculated innings. Until, suddenly, the collective madness appeared to infect him as well. A top-edged sweep picked out backward square off Chandana's bowling -- and when a bowler who turns to leg places a fielder behind square halfway to the fence you know he is trying to trap you on the sweep. Another clearly delineated trap, another batsman who walked right into it.

Between them, Kumble, Srinath and Chopra managed to scratch and club the score along to 205/8 in the allotted 50 overs -- some 60, 70 runs short of what a team batting first on this track could legitimately expect to make.

And yet, given the nature of this Lankan team, the total had possibilities provided the bowlers bowled to a plan. Initially, it did seem like the bowlers were doing just that. The fielders were in attacking positions, the line was tight and controlled, and Sri Lanka -- make that Sanath Jayasuriya, since Marvan Atapattu, opening ahead of Avishka Gunawardene, was if anything more strokeless than Ganguly had been at the start of the Indian innings -- had gone from 25/0 in five overs, to just 38/0 in ten.

Next thing you know, they are 69/0 in 15, adding 31 runs in the next five overs. What made the difference? Anil Kumble, to give the answer in two words.

Kumble doesn't turn the ball, he doesn't flight the ball, he doesn't do lots of things. But no one ever accused him of not bowling a tight line. Here, however, even his USP seemed to have deserted him. The leggie had a field of a slip, a silly point, a short square leg and, for Atapattu, even a short cover -- and you can't get more aggressive than that. But strangely, Kumble oscillated between overpitching and short-pitched stuff and was taken to the extent of 15 in his first two overs. He was then removed from the attack, brought back much later after Ganguly had bowled a few tight overs to somewhat repair the damage -- and in that second outing, he went for 16 in two overs. And when your most reliable bowler goes for 31 in four overs when defending a low score, what does it do to your chances? To my mind, this game swung away from India on two distinct occasions -- the first, when Robin's dismissal triggered a rapid collapse and second, when Kumble failed to hit line and length. The first meant that India would not put up a good total, the second ensured that the side would not be able to defend whatever runs it did have on the board.

Sanath Jayasuriya, batting in his usual neck or nothing fashion, continued to find problems facing Srinath bowling round the wicket. But any time the ball was short -- and Kumble, and to a lesser extent Prasad, gave him enough of those -- his strokeplay was savage. The Lankan captain's look heavenwards as he notched up his first 50 after breaking an arm in Australia was eloquent enough of how his lack of runs had been weighing on him, and it took a superb delivery from Nikhil Chopra to get rid of him.

Chopra, when he first came into the side, had been bowling flat and fast, looking to spear the ball in on a length and keep the batsman quiet. He now seems surer of his place in the squad, for he has taken to flighting the ball a lot more, and the result is apparent -- the offie is getting bite, bounce and vicious turn when he chooses to tweak the ball. Here, he floated one up at Jayasuriya, inviting the charge, beat the batsman with loop and flight, spun the ball away from the left hander leaving him stranded and presented MSK Prasad with the easiest of stumpings.

Avishka Gunwaradene came in at one drop, and Chopra -- easily India's best bowler on view today -- did him with another good one. This time, he went round the wicket, bowled one from very close to the stumps on a line just around off, drew the batsman into pushing square and the ball, on pitching, turned sharply away to kiss the edge through to the keeper.

Mahela Jayawardene's temperament is impeccable, and here he gave enough proof of it in the calm way he negotiated the bowling. Throughout, the field had been kept in attacking positions, but Jayawardene quickly sized up the bowling -- and seemingly, realised too that the Indians couldn't hit the stumps to save a dying grandmother -- and with some judicious strokeplay interspersed with gentle pushes into gaps for brisk singles, ensured that the door was shut on any possibility of an Indian win. By the time he fell, cutting at a Robin Singh delivery that kept low and seamed in enough to go off the inner edge onto off stump, there was only one possible result -- and Indika de Saram, his replacement at the crease, saw the game through in company of Marvan Atapattu.

Atapattu's innings deserves special mention. After the match, Jayasuriya was asked why the right hander had been promoted to open, and the response was that the Lankan think tank wanted someone to bat through the 50 overs, and they figured Atapattu was the best bet.

That he was -- I can't think of too many batsmen who could go at a scoring rate of one run every four balls (which was what Atapattu for the initial part of his innings) and not lose patience. Yet Atapattu remained rock solid, focussing on staying there, seemingly unbothered by the dot balls, giving the strike to the man at the other end any chance he got, and concentrating on the job his team had given him, which was to stay out there for the duration. An exemplary display of application, that -- and one which, despite the slowness of scoring, deservedly won the man of the match award.

For India, Srinath was very tight and controlled; Prasad only slightly less so. Chopra was the revelation, attacking throughout his spell and producing any number of deliveries that beat the batsman, and seemingly gaining in confidence with every over. Ganguly did his usual tidy job, and Robin was good for the most part of his stint. As for Kumble -- who is right now producing, for the home video market, a compilation of his ten-wicket haul juxtaposed with the equally famous one by Jim Laker -- this is one performance he will want to forget before the team bus reaches the Taj Samudra Hotel.

One other aspect merits mention -- and that is the keeping of MSK Prasad. It is true that wicketkeepers tend to grow into the job, especially when keeping to spin -- a case in point being Saba Karim who was ordinary at the start, but grew in stature with every outing. Somehow, though, I don't see that happening with Prasad. The first game was played on a viciously turning wicket, and it wouldn't have been fair to judge him on that evidence. But here, it was a typical spinning track of the kind you find every day on the domestic circuit in India -- and Prasad's performance left a lot to be desired despite his two dismissals.

You judge a keeper by the way he anticipates what a spinner is doing -- and time and again, Prasad was found going the wrong way, managing to keep the ball from going through the byes only by putting his pads and body in the way. That is a technique that might give Ashish Ballal a complex, and give Prasad a chance of grabbing a spot as goalkeeper of the Indian hockey team -- but it does seem a tad out of place behind the stumps. Interestingly, in Chennai, the day I was there, I saw Prasad bat a bit in the nets -- but I never saw him keep to the Indian spinners.

So that is the score -- India played two, lost two.

It's going to take a lot of doing to come back from here.

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