NEWS
MATCH REPORTS
DIARY
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
PEOPLE
ARCHIVES

India make it 2-1

The norm for India on this tour has been that either the bowling clicks, or the batting -- but never both at the same time. For once, at Eden Park in Auckland, the touring side got its act -- acts -- together at the same time. And the result, a fluent 5 wicket win with overs to spare, to go 2-1 up with just the one game remaining.

The conditions were, to put it mildly, dodgy. Muggy weather, allied with a pitch sporting uneven patches of grass, made for ideal conditions for the seam bowlers early on. Add to that a ground at a peculiar angle, with one boundary over the 70-meter mark and another among the shortest in the world, at 51 meters, and you get the picture.

This was one toss Azharuddin had to win -- and after his one aberration in the previous game, he got back to his prime calling form, and promptly inserted the opposition.

Which was only half the battle -- on earlier occasions on this tour, Azhar has similarly sought first use of optimum bowling conditions, only to be let down by his attack force. This time, though, they came out firing on all cylinders, with both Srinath and Prasad producing a blistering spell with the new ball. Srinath began pitching the ball right up and looked unplayable, while Prasad relied more on prodigious movement both ways to make even accomplished batsmen look like tyros.

The fun and games began in the first over of the match with Srinath slipping in a very quick breakback. Bryan Young, playing the line outside off and shaping for the cut, was helpless to stop the ball darting back in to get the inner edge and crash into his stumps.

The first ball of the second over of the innings, from Prasad, was a late incutter that took McMillan'e edge for Mongia to hold. It was also a no ball. A couple of balls later, McMillan took a swing at a leg cutter that he misread completely, the ball flying off the edge into Azhar's hands at second slip -- and out again.

Srinath then got back into the act, in the third over, this time producing one on off stump line, straightening with the arm after swinging away through the air to have Mathew Horne pushing without a clue where it was going -- Azhar holding the catch low down in front of him at second slip.

With the ball seaming around and the bowlers hitting the right line and length, the cricket that followed was hardly pretty -- edges flying around in all directions, lots of oohs and aahs, and a thought in the bystander's mind that maybe a third slip would have been more handy than the fielder deep behind square on the leg side. This period also made you wonder why a third seamer in Mohanty, rather than a spinner, was not played on conditions so ideally suited to bowlers capable of moving it around in the air and off the seam.

Srinath, on fire on the day, took out Roger Twose with one slanting away on a good length, moving late after pitching to take the edge of the attempted drive for Azhar to hold smartly at second slip. And the Indian skipper, seeing his opening bowlers on fire, gave them an extended spell with Srinath bowling seven on the trot, and Prasad bowling his ten through.

McMillan and Cairns set about the repair work in their individual styles -- Cairns all defense while McMillain, finding himself completely at sea against the bowling particularly of Prasad (during this period, Ajay Jadeja at deep midwicket was to floor a desperate heave by the batsman), attempted to hit his way out of trouble.

This produced the odd flowing shot, mixed in with a lot of unaesthetic fencing around line of off -- till Prasad ended his misery in his 8th over, producing three lovely leg cutters and then bringing one back in sharply, the batsman playing for the one going away and finding it go through the gate to take out off stump.

However, the problem of the third seamer began showing around this stage -- Robin Singh, so effective on the slow flat pitches of the sub continent, coming on nicely to the bat on the grassy track, for Cairns in particular to take full toll with two towering sixes, easing the pressure on the batting side.

Azhar was forced to turn to non-regular seam bowling in Saurav Ganguly -- and hit paydirt, with the bowler shutting one end down in a controlled spell that was finally rewarded when Parore, struggling to get the ball off the square, completely misread an incutter, playing for the straight one and trying to work to leg for the movement to take the ball through the gap between bat and pad and take out middle stump.

Cairns alone had batted, till that point, like one in complete accord with the conditions. However, his trademark impetuosity did for him as, faced with a declining run rate, he attempted to swing Nikhil Chopra out of the park, to be beaten in flight and turn, mishitting for Jadeja, out on the fence, to judge and hold well running in.

As so often on this tour, the Kiwi middle and later order did what the top order had failed to do, adding precious runs. Skipper Nash, in tandem first with Cairns, then with Harris, provided a measure of respectability to the Kiwi total before Tendulkar got him mishitting a straight one on off stump. Earlier, Nash was distinctly lucky to get the umpire's nod in his favour, after a late seaming Ganguly delivery squared him up, and took the edge through to Mongia. Apparently, everyone but the umpire heard the nick -- and Nash survived.

Vettori came out to partner the ever reliable Harris, and displayed a penchant for improvisation to have the Kiwis on 207/7 in the allotted overs -- a score that considerably improved on the 29/3 they were at one point in the innings.

Interestingly, the first 25 overs produced a mere 87 runs, for the loss of four wickets -- indicative enough of the fact that the Indian bowlers slackened up a bit towards the latter part of the innings. Though Ganguly and Tendulkar came up with 12 good overs between them, the absence of a genuine third seamer definitely helped ease the pressure somewhat -- and rather unfortunately, the arithmetic went askew and the innings ended with Srinath, the main strike bowler (his extended first spell saw him return figures of 7-0-22-3), not completing his quota in conditions that favoured him to a nicety.

Though a couple of catches went down, the Indian outcricket was a considerable improvement on earlier performances on this tour -- as to whether that is a sign of improvement, or merely an aberration, your guess is probably better than mine.

207 on this track was going to be a tricky kind of ask -- and the task seemed harder still when, as early as the second over, Tendulkar was seen clutching his forearm and signalling for emergency treatment. An over later, he was in need of treatment again, for what seemed to be a pinched nerve in the forearm. In the event, the opener seemed completely out of sorts, his bat coming down perceptibly slower onto the ball. He was, however, a tad ill-used to be given out to one from Cairns pitching off and middle and seaming to leg -- playing from the top of the crease, Tendulkar seemed to get the pad to a ball going down leg.

That brought Ganguly and Dravid together -- and the two combined fluently in a steadying partnership of 88 runs that practically took the game away from the Kiwis.

The New Zealand bowlers have been testing Ganguly out on a slanting line, pitching just short of driving length around off, drawing him forward to leave him off the seam looking for the edge. In this innings, he handled that line a lot better, playing late, reading the movement and letting it through. Fluent drives and glances, and one fierce pull, produced the six fours studding a classy half century, before a lapse of concentration saw him drive airily at Cairns for Parore to do the rest.

A comparison of the two sides in the first half of the innings indicates the impact of the partnership: Kiwis 11/2 in 5, 33/3 in 10, 51/3 in 15, 69/4 in 20 and 87/4 in 25. India, correspondingly, 24/0, 42/1, 61/1, 82/1 and 111/2 -- which meant that by the halfway stage, the second wicket partnership had batted the side into a situation from where it would take abysmal batting by the rest to lose.

Equally instrumental was Dravid -- the standout performer on this tour. Much maligned for slow scoring on the flat subcontinental tracks that suit the slam bang types, the right handed number three has, on foreign soil and in conditions helpful to pace and swing, produced innings after innings that serves to underline his credentials -- and this was one such, with fluent strokeplay on both sides of the track being the highlight. Indicative of his changed approach was his classical inside out lift over extra cover, for six, off Daniel Vettori -- a stroke he is seen to be playing regularly, for the first time in his career, on this tour.

Dravid left in the over immediately after Ganguly's departure, Cairns pitching one further up just outside off and seaming it in, the batsman initially shaping to run it down to third man, then opting for defence as he saw the ball dart back in. The change of mind proved fatal, the ball sneaking through to take off stump.

Azharuddin and Jadeja came together with the score at 119/3. A larger target might have prompted a cautious approach -- but with the goal well in sight, both batsmen apparently figured that hanging around was counter productive. Thus, a sudden avalanche of full blooded strokes saw Daniel Vettori (who, against the Indians, has been having a miserable time so far) being smashed out of the attack, with Jadeja and Azhar both clubbing him over long off for sixes in the same over.

Harris was brought on to try and stem the tide -- only for Jadeja to open his shoulders, with a clubbed six over extra cover followed by a superb straight hit over the sightscreen -- an assault that took the game completely out of the Kiwi grasp.

Simon Doull did manage to check the momentum somewhat -- with some help from the umpire. A ball pitching middle and turning to leg saw Jadeja hit on the front pad, playing well forward and trying to work to leg. The ball was going outside leg, but as with Tendulkar, so with Jadeja, the decision went the other way.

Later in the same over, Doull produced a slower delivery that Azhar, batting with easy fluency till that point misread, and mishit, the unexpected bounce and change of pace putting the ball down point's throat.

India at that point were 188/5 -- and Robin Singh, characteristically bellicose after a slow start, and Mongia, calm and controlled, finished off the game with no further alarums. The dominance of bat on the ball was as complete, in the second innings, as the dominance of ball on bat in the first -- thus, to use one statistical yardstick, where the Kiwis produced 12 fours and two sixes, the Indians had 25 fours (just under half the target) and six sixes to show on the board. An important statistic in a way -- generally the Kiwis add a good thirty runs to their total with outstanding fielding but with the Indians finding the fence with such regularity, this facet of the Kiwi game was blunted.

That makes it 2-1 for India with one left to play -- a good comeback after going one down in the first game of the series and narrowly clawing a win in the second. Which, in turn, puts the pressure entirely on the home side in the final game, needing a win to level the series.

In passing, one last thought -- Rahul Dravid has been far and away India's man of the series thus far, but his Man of the Match award today was debatable. True, he came in, as usual, after an early wicket and steadied the innings, then turned it round for his side -- but Ganguly was an equally important part of that partnership, and his performance earlier with the ball, halting the slide after the Kiwis seemed to have the measure of Robin Singh, should I thought have tilted the scales in his favour.

Sir Richard Hadlee evidently did not think so, however -- and he's the judge.

Scoreboard