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Windies down India by 70 runs

Passion. In one word, that made the difference between the two sides on the day, as West Indies struck back in style to level the series at a game apiece, and set up a decider on Tuesday at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club.

India played the first half of the game very well to restrict the West Indies batting lineup yet again. But a fired up side came out to defend that total and did what it does best -- produced an exhibition of aggressive fast bowling, with the added bonus of all round brilliance in the field, to produce an emphatic win.

The pitch used was the same as the one for the first game. Heavy overnight dew, which delayed the start of play by 30 minutes, produced ideal conditions for seam bowlers. Surprisingly, therefore, Lara with four fast men at his disposal (the Windies bowling lineup acquired more teeth with the return of Dillon) choose to bat first on winning the toss. There is only one reason I can think of -- that Lara doesn't fancy exposing his batsmen to spin on a track of variable bounce, on the chase.

The first four overs produced sheer insanity. Campbell began by edging Prasad through slips -- a catch that should have been taken at this level, but which the slip fielders didn't even attempt -- in the very first over. Jacobs then settled down to give catching practise, edging Mohanty to slip. Ramesh dived to his right, got his fingers under it, and grassed it. An over later, Jacobs was at it again -- by way of variety Ramesh dived to his right and grassed another one. Sure, both were hard chances -- but that is what slip fielders are there for. Ramesh's problem is that he doesn't bend low in the slips. Generally, the catches that come there are low to the ground and the great slip fielders -- Azhar, Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor, whoever -- stay very close to the ground as the bowler is running in, and make the kind of chances that Ramesh grassed look easy.

It raises a question that has often puzzled me. While every other team seems to be going in for specialisation, why is India going the other way, to the era of the general practitioner? In the last couple of weeks, I have seen Sachin Tendulkar, Ramesh, Dravid, Ganguly, Kanitkar, Kambli and, god help us all, Venkatesh Prasad among others standing in the slips. A highly specialised position that, but the Indian way seems to be to whistle up the nearest guy and put him there. And that has cost the team dear in the past, and will do so again in the future. In passing, this is a reflection on the coaching -- a good coach will pick specialist fielders for these positions and keep them in practise.

In between, there was a Jacobs pull that went high and landed wide of Ramesh, now banished to mid on and slow off the blocks there. A Campbell pull that saw Prasad coming in off the line like he was taking his pet pooch for an airing, and contenting himself with fielding the ball on the bounce. And two other edges that went wide of fielders. All this in the first five overs, meant the edge was taken off the bowling right at the start. Campbell, beneficiary of a let off in the first over of the day, went on to play an innings that won him the Man of the Match award, so that should tell you something.

In the first game, the incisive spell by the seamers meant that Ganguly could bowl them for six overs apiece. And that in turn meant the spinners could be introduced later. Here, Prasad was a touch off colour with line and length, alternating superb leg cutters with some ordinary stuff. Mohanty bowled with a lot of venom, and suffered from a good four clear chances going to waste. And Ganguly had to bring Chopra being brought on ahead of schedule, in the 10th over. The off spinner, who seems these days to be on confidence overdose, ended Jacobs misery by following up two off spinners with a top spinner. Jacobs shaped to cut, spotted the change of ball too late, changed his mind to defense and ended up chopping the ball onto the furniture. Chopra had struck early, again, and that was merely prelude to another outstanding spell of controlled, quality off spin (noticeably, even when brought on to bowl to Lara, Chopra held his nerve and made the normally free flowing Windies skipper opt for defense).

The Windies tend to choke if a couple of wickets go down early. That didn't happen here, and Campbell after the early alarms settled down to sensible cricket. Ganguly brought himself on after Joshi failed to break through in a three over first spell (quick bursts from each bowler and rapid rotation seem to be hallmarks of the Ganguly school of captaincy) and continued his love affair with Toronto, taking out Chanderpaul off the first ball he bowled. The left handed number three had looked in nice touch, Ganguly bowled one on leg stump on a fullish length seaming away, Chanderpaul flicked, and M S K Prasad, anticipating superbly, dived to his right to take a great catch.

While on MSK Prasad, I owe the man an apology and a vote of thanks. The apology is for a comment I made while describing his keeping in Sri Lanka, when I had suggested that Ashish Ballal would have done better. I still think Ashish Ballal would have done better than Prasad did in Lanka -- but Prasad has come into his own here, and suddenly looks hot behind the stumps. What is interesting is that unlike Mongia, he is not afraid to dive headlong for catches, and as a result, produces some blinders. Also, his overall glovework has improved, a sign that the initial nerves are over and he is now getting his confidence back. Which brings me to the reason for giving him thanks -- there's a little lesson in there, that it pays to watch a player over a few games before filling out his progress report.

Ganguly then produced another good ball, this one swinging in from outside off, pitching in line with the stumps and straightening to beat a Gayle flick and rap him on the pads, reducing the West Indies to 89/3 in 23. While on Gayle, they tell us the left-hander is a superb strokeplayer. Thus far, he hasn't lasted long enough for us to form an opinion on that one -- but it does seem a touch strange to see him struggling out there, while the overs tick by and Lara stays in the hut. Surely, the West Indies would want their master batsman out there as early as possible to control the innings and take the fight to the opposition?

When he finally came out, Lara appeared hell bent on gritting this one out, where in recent times he has tried to flow from the get-go and left cheaply. Campbell, who notched up his second successive 50 of the tournament (apparently it is not only Ganguly who can score here with any frequency), contented himself with taking a single first chance he got and letting Lara do all the hard work, till Sunil Joshi took him out with a lovely bit of bowling. It's becoming a bit of a Joshi trademark, actually, this mode of dismissal -- the trick is, he tosses a couple up to the bat, around line of off, and makes it turn away from the batsman. Then he comes closer to the stumps, pitches one fullish on middle and makes it go straight through with the arm, the batsman playing for non-existent turn and getting trapped in front. Here, he produced two such deliveries in succession -- the appeal was turned down first time out, and upheld on the second call, Campbell being palpably in front there.

If it is Powell, it must be Mohanty, seems to be the Indian slogan. The ploy of bringing on the seamer didn't work yesterday, but today Mohanty made it two dismissals in three tries when he produced a ball outside off that seamed rapidly away. Powell, who had off only the second ball he faced stood tall and clubbed a huge six over long on, went for it, trying to clear extra cover. Yesterday, the attempt ended in a flat catch to the sweeper off Robin Singh. Today, off Mohanty's more pronounced seam movement, the edge to Prasad took out the hard hitting middle order batsman. Powell is devastating with his power and eye, sure. But he seems rather iffy around line of off, and coupled with that, appears to imagine that he has to hit every ball out of the ground, and those could be weaknesses opposing lineups will increasingly target.

Lara, playing well within himself and seemingly content to see through the overs with a view of mounting a slog at the death, went next, to an absolute blinder behind the stumps by Prasad. Ganguly produced a ball on line of off seaming away late. Lara had, an over earlier, waited on one such ball and, playing heart-stoppingly late, glided the four to a very fine third man. He went for it again here, and Prasad, anticipating, moved to his left, then took off in a headlong dive to come up with the ball snagged in his left glove. That was great presence of mind allied to brilliant glovework.

The West Indies, looking good at 55/1 in 15 (never mind all those edges and dropped chances, runs on the board are what count) had been pegged right back by a combination of rapid bowling changes, excellent bowling by Chopra, good support by Joshi and Ganguly himself, and some good ground fielding (though the catching remained pretty ordinary, even the normally sure Kanitkar making a meal of a Dillon pull that he got to at deep midwicket and then grassed). Adams, at his best, is not the man you want to see batting in the slog, and with Dillon swinging with vigour but little sense and Prasad and Mohanty producing some intelligent bowling at the death, the West Indies managed just 39 in the last ten overs. While on Mohanty, an interesting sidelight is that today, for the first time, he began coming up with the slower ball and did very well too, showing good control and considerable thought in when and where to use it. Amazing what a regular spot in the side, and the resulting confidence, can do for a guy.

But good though the bowling was, it needs mentioning that unless the Indians apply themselves to their catching, they will end up blunting the edge of their bowlers too often for comfort. To restrict the Windies to 190 was commendable, sure -- but if you look at the catches that went down, and the outcome, you get to thinking India could have lopped at least 35, 40 runs off that total had they hung on their chances, and that is bad cricket.

However, the ask was under four an over, and theoretically, all that the Indians needed to do was see off the shine on the ball, see off Walsh and just bat through the 50 overs -- it is difficult to see a side batting out the 50 on the chase and not making a sub-20 target.

What they didn't need to do was lose wickets. The Windies temperament with the ball is notoriously mercurial. Give them a sniff of a wicket early on and they take fire. Keep them out for a few overs, and they lose the edge of their pace. Ramesh, effectively, added fuel to the Windies fire with a silly dismissal off the second ball he faced -- a regulation delivery from King, bowling over the wicket, angling it across the left hander. The ball did nothing special but Ramesh, with feet seemingly nailed to the crease, opted to push away from his body. Powell in the slips, unlike Ramesh himself in the West Indies innings, held on to the catch and the West Indies were off and running.

Suddenly, there was electricity out there. The ground fielding touched heights of brilliance, the catching was sure and King and Colleymore changed up a couple of gears to produce a burst of real quick bowling.

Prasad, opening again, owed his dismissal to some demon of his own mind. Dravid, playing wide of mid on, called for the run and raced through. Prasad, for some reason, raced down halfway, then slowed up and looked over his shoulder to see what the fielder was up to, ambled another couple of paces and did it again. Lara, always an outstanding fielder, raced to his right, picked up and rocketed a flat throw onto the base of the stumps to catch the opener an inch out of his ground -- leaving you to wonder just what Prasad was doing with those looks back over his shoulder and the consequent slowing of his pace. Reminds you, in fact, of P T Usha at the Olympics, with the tape in sight and a bronze there for the taking, doing a little glance over her shoulder and getting pipped to the post -- is this some kind of Indian quirk, you think?

Ganguly left to an absolutely outstanding bit of work by Chanderpaul at point. The ball was in the slot for Ganguly's pet cut shot, and he played it firmly, timing it well and hitting it to the right of the point fielder. Chanderpaul took off, diving sideways and reaching forward to take the ball as it was dropping in front of him -- a great take by a fielder who, on the day, was on song, and that kind of thing always makes a difference.

Dravid and Kanitkar then settled down to play on merit -- and to their credit, the West Indies bowling was of a very high order of merit. At their pace, they don't get too much swing through the air, but here they bowled the perfect length and line, really pushed for pace and pinned the batsmen down with great backing in the field. Kanitkar did well enough to hang on, but got himself into a rut through leaving too many balls alone and not looking for the singles -- and then, trying to remedy matters, compounded his error by guiding a nothing ball around off straight into the gloves of the keeper. Not the best of comebacks for a player who became a folk hero of sorts with his penchant for coming in and finishing off matches with a boundary.

In came Robin Singh and out went Dravid -- for the second time in two days, victim to a ball he could do nothing about. Dillon pushed one through quick, bang on line of the pads and Dravid, shaping to work to leg, was beaten by the variable bounce at that end, the ball striking bad about halfway below the knee for a plumb dismissal. If they use this same pitch for the third game as well, stand by for a few more such LBWs with the ball keeping low -- there is one end where the odd ball is scooting through, and it could become a factor in the decider.

For me, though, the perfect example of the passionate West Indian display in the field was the dismissal of Robin Singh. Reon King ties with Courtney Walsh (who, as it turned out, finished the game off with a well judged running catch at long on to dismiss Prasad) as the worst of the West Indian fielders. Robin Singh, playing sensibly at the time, glided one off his hips down to fine leg. King raced along the line, flung himself headlong and got body behind ball to cut off the four. And then he added the icing by scrambling to his feet remarkably quickly and producing a flat, hard throw that caught Robin fractionally out of his ground on the second run. That pretty much summed up the West Indies attitude in the field -- they weren't taking any prisoners on the day.

Jacob Martin made his debut with the bat here. One innings is too early to judge, so for now, just this on his batting: like a lot of batsmen reared on India's slow pitches (remember Rathore? Somasunder?), he plays predominantly, almost pre-determinedly, off the front foot. To really judge what he is made of, you have to see him get a few short ones, to see how he goes off the back foot. Ironically, the only time in his innings that he went on the back foot today, he got out -- King pitched a touch short, Martin hopped back, the ball kept low (that's number two, from the same end that saw the Dravid dismissal), went through the gate and took out middle stump. Benefit of the doubt to Martin, given the low bounce -- we need to watch him for a while longer to see if he has what it takes at this level.

43/7 in the 26th over had everyone thinking of all kinds of disreputable records. Not the lowest ODI score, that honour remains with Pakistan. But India's lowest was 63 in Sydney, in 1981 (lowest against the Windies, 100 at Ahmedabad in the 1983 series when Lloyd and his men came over looking for vengeance), and that 'record' looked under threat here.

Chopra, whose attitude with bat and ball (by way of bonus, he fields very well) continues to impress, and Joshi, who too has a happy knack of getting runs, then produced the first spell of sanity in the day. Their 57 run partnership was well compiled -- and it is not as if the Windies bowlers eased up on the pedal either. Chopra and Joshi saw off bursts by Walsh, Collymore and King, finally forcing Lara to opt for spin (the Windies skipper didnt have any options, since two of his quicks had already completed their quotas). Joshi hoisted a lovely straight six, but when Adams pitched one ridiculously short, went into adrenalin overdose, attempted to blast it over wide long on and managed only to set the stage for Powell to demonstrate what a good athlete he is. Running around the line like Michael Johnson, Powell snagged that one like a baseball outfielder and made a hard catch look ridiculously easy in the process.

Prasad then produced moments of humour, two educated edges getting him fours to third man, and drawing an enormous cheer when he then waltzed down to Gayle and clubbed him clean over long off for a very well struck six. It was in trying to go over long on, by way of variety, that he gave Walsh an opportunity to run in nicely off the line and take a well-judged catch, then turn to the crowd with an ironic grin.

India had only itself to blame here. Needing merely to hang in there, too many batsmen played the kind of away-from-body pushes that coaches are forever warning you about -- not a great testimonial to the individual IQs. Which is not to take away from a flawless West Indian performance in the field (if, that is, you discount those wides -- 19 of them, in a total of 120, is surely extravagant? And as surely, one day the Windies will lose a close one thanks to this inability of their bowlers to get their radar working? And surely, Messers Collymore, King and Dillon could take a tip from Walsh, the only one of the quartet to bowl without giving away a single extra?).

This defeat could cost India dearly. 190 was the kind of target they could have got, had they applied themselves. And a win here would have given the side the cup. Now, they have a lot of hard work to do in the third game -- and they've made things worse for themselves by giving the Windies quick a taste for blood.

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