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Tendulkar leads Indian fightback

Prem Panicker

For a captain - especially if you are leading the representative eleven of quite as volatile and cricket-crazy a country as India - it can be an awful moment to see a scoreboard reading 9 for two, after having first inserted the opposition on winning the toss and then watched them compile 332 runs in the first innings.

You walk out to bat, knowing that things are on the verge of going horribly wrong. Knowing, too, that if and when things go awry, there will be no excuses to offer, no consideration of the fact that you can't do it all on your own. It will be your neck on the line, period.

Takes enormous character to play, from that position, the sort of innings Sachin Tendulkar played today. When Chaminda Vaas and Pushpakumara were bowling flat out, he counterattacked, racing to his first 40 runs off just 43 balls. And the fortune that reportedly favours the brave (Sachin must have begun doubting that saying, given all the times he has been out playing superb strokes only to see fielders pull off miraculous catches) finally got its act together when he drove at Pushpakumara, with his score on 34, the ball took the edge, and Ranatunga at first slip dived to his left but failed to hold on to a very low, hard chance.

From that point on, Tendulkar changed gears, and went into 'responsible captain' mode. No fuss, no flourish - just a broad, straight bat to everything they threw at him, working the singles nicely, hitting hard whenever the bowlers erred in length and line, and moving smoothly to his 13th Test 100, his second in succession, and his third in Tests this year.

In the process, he also scored over half the runs made by India so far. Captaincy has affected his batting, did someone say?

Earlier, in the morning, India's bowlers for once did not hang around - the tail was polished off in the space of just 16 more runs, with Mohanty getting the most crucial wicket when he made Aravinda D'Silva (146 off 226 balls with 20 fours) fence with one just outside off and moving away off the seam, to give Mongia an easy take.

Kumble finally got something to show for his efforts when Muralitharan (39 off 78 with six fours), already way past his personal highest in Tests, poked at a flipper outside off for Azhar to hold low at slip. And Mohanty promptly finished things off with a lovely slower ball on off and middle, inducing Pushpakumara to play all over it before he had scored. Sri Lanka, thus, all out 332, which was quite a few runs below what looked possible when play resumed this morning with Aravinda still at the wicket.

Which brings us to Mohanty. Figures of 20.4-5-78-4 are a debutant's dream - more so if your wickets are those of Roshan Mahanama and Sanath Jayasuriya, the world record holders of just a few days ago, and Aravinda D'Silva, the third Lankan centurion in the first Test.

So is he the hot prospect India is looking for?

Frankly, I think it is too early to call. I did discuss his bowling action and suchlike details in the report yesterday. What needs adding to that is temperament - throughout his stint, he never once flagged from his aggressive, in your face style of bowling, even against Jayasuriya and Aravinda. And aggression in a fast medium bowler is always a good thing.

However, it would be nice to see him bowl on a real fast track, also on a slow, dead pitch, before really assessing his long terms prospects. One thing, though, needs saying - if the BCCI is halfway interested in the prospects of this side, then it will nurse Mohanty, Dodda Ganesh and such along, sponsor stints at the MRF Academy under Dennis Lillee and T A Shekhar, have a qualified physical fitness trainer - no, not our in-house Iodex merchant Ali Irani - monitor their actions and general fitness levels, for it is when you are starting out that you are most prone to injury.

None of which is going to happen, naturally - this is India, after all. But you can't blame a guy for wishing, can you?

Not quite sure, too, just who comprises the Indian think tank now. Remember that Madan Lal is in disgrace, his successor in waiting, Anshuman Gaikwad, is already in Sri Lanka though not officially installed. So just who, or what, is the think tank for the team today?

Whoever it is, said tank needed less than half an hour to realise that in including Ajay Jadeja in this side and giving him yet another opportunity to embarass himself as a Test opener, they hadn't done themselves, or the batsman, any favours.

Jadeja is like Srikkanth - an enormously imaginative batsman when given his head and told to go for the bowling. But ask him to play a Test type innings, and the poor guy is at sea, mainly because his footwork is the innovative, rather than the classical, kind. In a slog situation, a batsman whose initial movement of the back foot is towards leg stump or outside is well placed to hit the ball around. At the top of the order in Tests, that same thing is a prescription for disaster - which duly struck when Vaas bowled one closer to off stump, Jadeja poked at it with about a couple of feet between bat and body, and Kaluwitharana took the edge, Jadeja going for one run off 18 deliveries and India at that stage 2/1.

Mr Consistent - aka Rahul Dravid - was about due for a bad day at the office, and he got it here when he had scored just two off nine deliveries. This time, it was the angled delivery from Sajeewa D'Silva across the right hander, which took the edge of Dravid's driving bat for Vaas to hold well and reduce India to 9/2.

Enter, Sachin Tendulkar. And with Sidhu, fresh from his century at the Premadasa just a week ago, looking in fine touch, India looked good to recover from those early alarms, the two together taking the score along to 81 before Sidhu's greatest strength proved, yet again, his terminal weakness. Murali was into his first over after lunch, Tendulkar had just taken a single, and off the very first ball he faced, Sidhu (29 off 72 balls) jumped a few feet down the wicket - why he thought of that lofted on drive, given the presence of a long on and a wide and deep mid wicket, beats me - only to find that Murali had cannily pitched it short and spun it sharply. The ball went right through the gap between flailing bat and body and Kalu pulled off an easy stumping.

Azhar, too, looked in fluent touch on a wicket meant for his brand of strokeplay. And it looked like he was determined to get another big one - so much so that when Sachin Tendulkar once opened the bat face to glide one dangerously close to slips, Azhar promptly marched down the wicket to have a word with his captain. But just when Azhar (22 off 61 with three fours) was looking at his most assured, he opted for his favourite method of cricketing suicide - the off drive with head in the clouds and feet stationary, the resulting edge off Vaas flying to Mahanama at second slip and India 126/4.

Saurav Ganguly came in with memories of his duck in the previous innings for company - and after a healthy swipe at Murali early in his innings, settled down to play the easy, fluent type of innings that he is capable of, while adding 100 runs with his captain. Loose deliveries were hit with his trademark grace and, now that he has started using a very heavy bat, more power than before - an extra cover drive off Muralitharan bowling round the wicket into the rough being the shot of the day to my mind. But at the same time, when the bowlers bowled tight, he put his head down and hung in there with exemplary patience to end the day not out 47 off 121 with 6 fours.

Tendulkar, meanwhile, came up with one of his more mature innings - very calm and composed, uninclined to take the slightest risk. And at close, he was still batting 117 off 214 with 14 fours - which, given that when Azhar left he was on 52 off 61 balls, is indicative enough of the amount to which he reined himself in once he realised that in Ganguly, the last of the recognised batsmen was at the crease.

All of which sets the stage for an interesting third day. Sri Lanka have thus far sent down 81 overs, which means that the new ball is due - and will, in all probability, be taken first thing tomorrow. And that should prove the key to this game - if Tendulkar and Ganguly can weather Vaas, Pushpakumara and D'Silva bowling with the new ball on a track which, early in the morning, will have some extra nip and bounce thanks to overnight moisture, then the batting side shouldn't have a problem going into the lead here, and that in turn will give them a psychological edge for the remainder of this test.

A wicket or two early on, though, and Sri Lanka will take the initiative back into their hands.

One word needs to be said in passing. Today, I saw Sajeewa D'Silva, just after finishing an over in the middle of a long spell, run a good 20 yards to his right at midwicket to effect a racing stop off a Ganguly off drive, and return the ball in one motion to restrict the batsmen to just one single. And that was pretty much indicative of the Sri Lankan effort in the field - they did not let the batsmen get a single run without having to work very hard for it.

And this, in turn, helps the bowlers to an enormous degree, helping them maintain pressure - a lesson India needs badly to learn. Strolling over to pick up a ball played towards them and watching the batsmen stroll singles only ends up taking the edge off the bowling - and considering what a faint edge there is in the Indian bowling, this is something they just cannot afford.

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