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India bundled out for 83

India 83 all out in 27 overs; New Zealand 119/3 in 51 overs, ahead by 36 with seven wickets in hand.

What turned out to be an interesting day for Indian cricket began with the morning papers -- wherein neither the television listings, nor the sports pages, had any mention of television coverage of the India versus New Zealand Test series.

Intrigued, my colleague Faisal Shariff contacted the BCCI. "I don't know, Doordarshan should be covering it, I suppose, shouldn't they?" This, from Sharad Diwadkar. Who for the uninitiated is the executive secretary of the board.

It finally took a call to Punjab Cricket Association boss Inderjit Singh Bindra, on his mobile, to get the information that the match was being telecast. "By DD Sports," Bindra told us.

That leads to another intriguing little thought. When DD was given the telecast rights ahead of other contenders, the argument was higher reach. Cricket, the BCCI bosses said, should not be confined to the elite urban audiences who have access to Star and ESPN, but should be available to the masses.

How true. Catch, though, is that DD Sports is on the hyperband channel. Not only is it not available across the country, but further, the older TV sets can't even tune in. For instance, we have four television sets in the office -- on checking, we found that the two new sets, purchased during the World Cup, could tune in, but the two older sets wouldn't pick up the site. Does this match with what the board is talking about -- greater reach?

Cricket itself brought nothing to write home about. The tickers were full of the new dispensation ruling Indian cricket -- coach Kapil Dev, and captain Sachin Tendulkar.

The news agencies quoted Tendulkar about his back: "It is okay now, I am fit." And Kapil Dev about the game itself. And what does the coach say? 'I haven't had time to check out the Kiwis... we haven't worked out a gameplan... but the boys are confident, it is time to go in for the kill... it is time to rock and roll..."

I found myself desperately hoping that Kapil Dev had been misquoted. I mean, it is possible that a new coach hasn't had time to find his feet. But does one actually make that sort of statement -- so reminiscent of the 'We bloody murdered them' that David Lloyd cut loose with in England?

It is strange that at what is admittedly a key phase for Indian cricket, the game is being run by out of touch people. Chandu Borde, for instance, had while justifying the picking of Devang Gandhi, suggested that his youth made him a good investment for the future. Gandhi is 28 -- a bit older than Dravid, Ganguly, and Tendulkar himself. Borde suggested, too, that Gandhi had been opening for a long time -- when the fact is he has only opened for slightly over a season.

In any case, India went in with three debutants -- Gandhi, Bharadwaj and MSK Prasad. And a bowling lineup that showed only four regular bowlers -- Kumble and Joshi as regular spin purveyors, in alliance with Bharadwaj; and Srinath and Prasad for seam. Mohanty, with his ability to swing and seam the ball both ways in any kind of conditions, again pays the price for not having the kind of "past record" Prasad has.

Stephen Fleming, who went in with pretty much the same lineup that, earlier this year, had given England a rough ride, called right at the toss and opted to field first. "There is a bit in the pitch, we are hoping for some early wickets," Fleming said at the toss, but it is doubtful if even Fleming at his most optimistic would have expected to get India out for 83 inside 27 overs of complete madness.

Let's face it, while there was a little bit in the pitch, there was absolutely nothing to justify a side being bowled out for 83 inside 27 overs. The game started 45 minutes late thanks to some damp spots on the track, caused by the pitch sweating under the covers. Early on, there was some slight seam movement, and a touch of swing -- the kind of first day Test track on which openers look to play out the first hour, confident that if they can do that, the pitch under the sun will ease out sufficiently to allow them to milk the bowling for the rest of the day.

That, at least, is what a think tank au courant with the conditions and the opposition would have advised Ramesh and Gandhi when they went out to open. But this is the Indian team -- not too aware of what the Kiwis are all about, but of course, confident and ready to rock and roll.

And roll they did -- right over, in an abject demonstration of rank bad batsmanship.

The second over of the day started the exhibition -- interestingly, at the toss, Tendulkar said it didn't matter about losing the toss, "All we have to do is keep our heads." So Sadagopan Ramesh, off the second ball that he faced, shouldered arms to a ball on off and middle, got rapped on the pads, and was very lucky to see the appeal being turned down -- for the lord knows what reason. The very next ball, he threw his bat at a ball on off in an extravagant parody of a cover drive -- without, however, bothering to move his feet and get into line -- and found the ball going right through the gate as he played the wrong line, to take out off stump.

The next over produced the next wicket. Cairns, seeing Dravid coming well forward, bowled two good bouncers. Then he pitched one up. Dravid, unsure what length was coming at him thanks to those two short balls, pushed from the crease without getting fully forward, and guided the ball precisely into the hands of second slip. A thoughtful dismissal -- but you expect more from Dravid, the one man you don't think is likely to be suckered by such an obvious ploy in the early stages of a match.

Devang Gandhi played 14 balls. Or to be more accurate, he faced 14 balls -- and didn't have a clue what any of them were doing. The Kiwi bowlers apparently figured this out pretty early -- they concentrated on putting it around off and keeping it there, the occasional seam movement away being all that was needed to get the debutant into a state of sheer panic. His misery finally ended when he walked too far across his stumps to a ball just outside off, pushed at an awayseamer, and presented the keeper with an easy take. 7/3 in 5 overs.

Ganguly was trapped by the situation. He realised that he needed to play his natural game, but also, that the conditions asked for him to hang in there. So he first shaped to play, then shaped to leave, a fullish length ball from Dion Nash, and managed only to play it onto his stumps. India 10/4 in 6.

Vijay Bharadwaj seemed, for once, overawed by the situation. His contribution was limited to poking outside off, at a good length ball from Cairns going straight through -- the kind you leave well alone in a Test match. India 22/5.

Sachin Tendulkar seemed to have read the bowling, and was letting them through outside off, stroking easily when the ball was on line of the stumps. Shayne O'Connor, the left arm medium pacer coming on for Cairns, found himself being fluently guided through the point region of a packed off side field (three slips, gully, point, cover, mid off) when he seamed one across Tendulkar. Two balls later, O'Connor produced a yorker on line of off swinging in. Tendulkar, in earlier overs, had been stroking through midwicket when he found the line on off and middle stump, he tried the shot again here, misreading the length completely, and lost his stumps to the yorker. 38/6.

One ball later, 38/7 as Joshi, taking his cue from his betters in batsmanship, pushed a ball outside off into the safe hands of Stephen Fleming.

At lunch, India went in on 42/7 -- a complete rout, authored by some of the most despicable batsmanship seen in recent times, and triggered by Cairns (6-4-8-2), Nash (5-2-9-3) and O'Connor (3-0-13-2).

Sanity, of a sort, returned to proceedings after lunch. Anil Kumble kept up the good work when he got a ball of three quarter length outside off, going through straight, decided to go back and guide it through the slip cordon (why you would do that is, of course, a question we won't even waste time wondering about) and clinically picked out third slip to make India 58/8.

M S K Prasad finally showed how it was done, with a sensible exhibition of batting. Perfectly in line to everything, leaving everything through outside the line of off, Prasad alone looked completely untroubled and, in fact, showed up the incompetence of the top order. When he was out there with Srinath, their partnership made you realise just how culpable the earlier batsmen were -- for suddenly, there was no devil in the pitch, nothing in it for the seam bowlers, the batsmen were in no discomfort... 41 runs came in the hour after lunch for the loss of just the one wicket of Kumble.

The score at drinks was 83/8. Five minutes after resumption, that score read 83 all out. Srinath pushed outside off to give Nash his 5th wicket, and yet another catch in the slips (if you look at the number of batsmen caught in the slips and by the keeper, you would think this game was being played either in England on the kind of rainy, overcast day that is typical of an English 'summer', or in Perth against an attack comprising Donald, McGrath, Walsh, Ambrose, Akram, Akthar and Gillespie).

Venkatesh Prasad, obviously figuring that he might as well emulate the ones who had gone before, guided a Nash delivery to first slip to give the bowler his career best haul, 11-3-27-6. At the other end, MSK Prasad, having played a flawless little innings, walked back, denuded of partners.

Mathew Bell did a Ramesh when, to a Srinath delivery just outside off seaming in, the batsman shouldered arms and watch the ball whip back in to take out off stump.

Immediately thereafter, Srinath drew Horne forward around line of off, producing the ball that kicked and seamed away to take the outer edge. The ball was flying through the gap between keeper and first slip when Ganguly, realising that it was too wide for Prasad to go for it, lunged and clutched as the ball was flashing past him. 8/2 New Zealand, but if the audience was looking for the Kiwis to emulate the Indians, there was already at least one reason why it was not going to happen.

That reason was Prasad, who was getting absolutely nothing out of the wicket. He pitched a three quarter length, the ball went through nice and straight, and the batsmen without any problems guided him around through the off field -- meaning that the pressure produced at one end was let off at the other.

Given the presence of a left hander in Stephen Fleming, Sachin tried the off spin of Vijay Bharadwaj and with the score on 53/2 just after tea, the bowler beat Craig Spearman with a ball on off pushed through shorter and quicker, the batsman pushed, the ball flew off the edge and Dravid, momentarily unsighted by the keeper, reacted just that fraction late to be able to cling on.

Anil Kumble made his comeback. And proved, if anything, that the time away hadn't produced any major change in his bowling -- most importantly, his tendency to drift to leg remained as pronounced as before. An example in point was that when he went round the wicket to Fleming, Tendulkar kept a field of only one slip, no silly point, but a leg slip and short square leg in place -- indicating just where the ball was going.

Ironicallly, a full toss on the leg stump got India the third wicket -- Spearman was so surprised that he ended up playing too early and too eagerly, and managed only to pat it right back to the bowler, a rather bad end to a fine, patient Test-type innings wherein, earlier, he had casually despatched a similar full toss to the midwicket boundary.

Joshi bowled with some amount of bite, but the batsmen negotiated the left armer competently, if not prettily. Tendulkar rotated his bowlers around, but with Prasad and Kumble lacking bite, the attack looked a bit short on options. Natural enough -- when you have four bowlers and two are not doing anything much with the ball, what option is there.

Fleming played with exemplary patience -- a quality that the Indians, watching from close quarters in the field, could well learn from. He looked a bit ill at ease against Bharadwaj (Harbajan Singh, the better offie, was of course sitting out, having lost his place to Kumble) but overall, it was a rock solid performance, and with Astle for company, the Kiwi skipper played through to stumps, taken at 119/3 in 51 overs.

But whatever lessons are learnt on the day could be rather too late -- at close, the Kiwis already had taken a lead (what a luxury, on day one of a Test match!) and unless the Indians turn it completely around with the ball tomorrow morning, this game could turn into a lost cause.

The abiding memory of the day is the Indian procession to and from the wicket. Only five times in history have India been bowled out in a lesser number of overs -- ironically, New Zealand is one of the teams (England has done it twice, ditto Australia) that has done it, getting India out for 81 in 26.3 overs at Wellington in 1975-'76.

And the abiding regret is that this collapse was accomplished -- is 'accomplish' the right word to describe as sorry a sight as you can see on a cricket field? -- on a reasonably standard track, against bowling that was highly competent but not, despite the evidence of the scorecard, lethal.

Never mind -- 'the boys are confident, and it is time to rock and roll'.

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