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Win, lose or draw?

Prem Panicker

A situation, at close of play on day four, where any of three results is equally possible - now what better advertisement could there be for the game of Test cricket?

It's been a long, chaotic fourth day of play at the Sinhalese Sports Club - the kind of day cricket reporters and analysts love when they are watching the action, and hate the minute they have to sum it up. Simply because the good and the bad, right and wrong, are all so inextricably mixed up, you'd rather try to unscramble a plate of soggy noodles.

Point one relates to the pitch. By the morning of day four, the slight cracks visible towards the end of day three had widened fractionally, the grass had burned off just that much more - these are the changes. The wicket, though, remained hard and firm - with bounce if you bang it in, with turn if you spin the ball, but neither was the bounce unpredictable, nor the turn quick enough to worry technically adept batsmen. In sum, a wicket where you just couldn't slog at will, where the bowling side couldn't expect the track to do their work for them, but where bowlers could be effective if they stuck to the basics, and where batsmen could get runs with patience and application.

India had a delicate balancing act to do. It could not afford to give away free runs to the Sri Lankan batsmen and neither - if the touring side had any intention of seeing a wicket here - could it go overtly on the defensive either.

In that context, India goofed, and goofed badly, in the morning. Sachin Tendulkar was off the field nursing a minor injury (nothing serious, and the Indian captain took the field again for the post lunch session). Anil Kumble led in his absence. And till just before the lunch break, swapped himself, Venkatesh Prasad and Abey Kuruvilla around in long spells. What this meant was that Debashish Mohanty - the main wicket taker in the first innings and, by virtue of that, obviously the bowler with the highest degree of confidence at the time - stayed out in the deep, on boundary patrol.

The decision to underbowl Mohanty was obviously an error, and figures prove the tale. On day three, Mohanty began the bowling, and in his first over, bowled two loose deliveries in his first three balls, both of which went to the fence. At the end, his spell read 3-0-15-0, which meant that after straying in his first three balls, the remaining 15 balls were bowled at a total cost of seven runs. Again, Mohanty was given a four over spell just before lunch - with the ball considerably older, the field well spread, the batsmen well set. His first ball disappeared for four. At lunch, his spell read 4-0-13-0 - which means that his next 23 balls went for a total of nine runs, and in the process, he time and again cramped both Jayasuriya and Aravinda D'Silva with aggressive, spot on bowling. Makes you wonder just why he was underutilised.

During the same spell, and in fact throughout the entire Lankan innings today, the Indians were guilty of one more error - the "defensive" field. Choking the runs in this situation is definitely a tactic, but the working definition of defensive field is not to push the majority of the fielders onto the boundary line. Try visualising a cricket field, placing yourself in the middle, where the batsman would be. Imagine the fielders on the 30-yard-circle. Now, push them to the lines. What do you get? The further you push the fielders, the more you open gaps between them, for one thing, and the easier you make it for batsmen to take singles even by hitting straight to the fielders.

In other words, the Indians, by going overtly defensive, actually facilitated brisk run getting, and the Lankan batsmen promptly obliged. They were also helped by the fact that the bowlers - especially Kumble - bowled overly long spells, allowing them to settle down. And with runs easy to come by in the morning, the Lankans reached a stage, post lunch, where it didn't matter who bowled, to what line - both Aravinda and Jayasuriya went into overdrive, walking down the track before the bowler had even delivered the ball, bat raised club-like, and hitting hard in whatever direction the line of the ball indicated.

In the process, Sanath Jayasuriya followed Mathew Elliott of Australia as the second batsman, this year, to be out one run short of the double century mark, Aravinda D'Silva for his part recorded his sixth straight century in six successive innings on Sri Lankan soil, the last four coming in continuous sequence.

Which brings up a thought - does the Indian think tank realise the danger of letting opposing batsmen accumulate runs at will? Confidence is a funny thing - and at this point in time, I suspect that the confidence level of the likes of Jayasuriya and Aravinda must be way up there in the clouds. They must be feeling like supermen - and if a couple of clear LBW decisions were disallowed, if on the last ball of one over Aravinda was beaten by Kumble only to find the edge going through the gap where slip should have been for four, and off the first ball of the next over the same thing happens to Jayasuriya off Mohanty, well, heck, you don't remember those lapses when you have a century and more behind you. And these are the batsmen India will bowl to in three more Tests this year.

Could the Indians have done anything to stop the avalanche? Sure - a fraction more alertness in the field was all that was really needed. Examples - in the first hour of play, Jayasuriya drives Kumble, the ball goes in the air, at a comfortable height. Venkatesh Prasad at cover stands rooted then, at the last moment, steps back to stop the ball rather than dive forward to take it. What a bowler who had just finished his over was doing at cover when you had fielders like Jadeja and Robin Singh (substituting for Tendulkar) in the field is moot. In the event, Prasad not only did not take a catch that, at this level, is almost commonplace, but he also missed the ball and let it through for four more. Example two, Mohanty after a series of faster deliveries outside off to Aravinda, produces one on off stump, swinging in further. It is the slower ball, Aravinda plays too early, off the leading edge the ball lobs gently and lands a foot to the right of mid on and Kumble, fielding there at that time, stands rooted. Two very clear chances lost in the morning merely because of lack of mental alertness - and the result, mayhem from the survivors in the afternoon session.

Back to the match. At this point, what would the target be as per the Lankan gameplan? It pays to remember that these days, number of overs is the criterion - not time and mandatory overs. Thus, a "day's play" equals 90 overs. Granting that the Lankans were batting freely and without pressure, granting too that the bowling and field setting aided their efforts, remember the pace of run-scoring on the day, remember too that the Indian lineup includes an array of strokeplayers with Rahul Dravid alone playing the anchoring-type innings - so if you are an opposition captain, what do you look for when planning a declaration?

One, you want a few overs at the tired fielding side at the end of the day, in the hope of grabbing a quick wicket or two which would put the side batting last under psychological pressure going in to the final day. Two, you want to give them a run rate that is just out of reach to shut out the win and to force them on the defensive - because if the rate is attainable, then the side batting last begins to go for it, plays positive cricket, and that in turn shifts the pressure onto the fielding side.

Given all these criteria, what you would be looking at is a required run rate of around the 4.5 mark - which meant getting to around 437 before close. And it was eminently do-able, given that when Jayasuriya fell just after tea, the Lankan score was 363/3 and Ranatunga, D'Silva, Kaluwitharana, Mahela Jayawardene and Vaas were to follow.

At this point, the Lankans became over-eager. Aravinda cut hard to point, Ranatunga went for the run though the ball was going arrow straight and fast to the fielder, and paid the price for taking a risk he didn't need to take given the situation - had he remained, the left-right combination of two strokeplayers would have continued to unsettle the bowlers. Kaluwitharana was pushed ahead of Jayawardene, presumably to slog a few - in the event, Aravinda's haste to get to his century caused his partner's demise when, again, he cut to point, straight to the fielder, called for the run without reference to his partner, realised his folly halfway down the track, and looked a sure candidate for a run out when Kaluwitharana, with good presence of mind, just kept running to the batsman's end, sacrificing his wicket in the process and letting his senior partner off the hook.

Mahela Jaywardene needed merely to rotate strike and let the well-set Aravinda do the work. Instead, he went for a ball well wide of off stump, edged and Mongia took the catch far to his right - he had to, there was no slip in place. And with the wickets tumbling and Vaas unable to get his shots past the fielders, Aravinda finally went for the pre-determined slog and hit straight to the substitute, at deep extra cover.

In those few moments of madness, Lanka had undone all its hard work till then - and in the process, puts its skipper in a fix. When Aravinda got out, there were 15 overs left of the day's quota. Subtract two for change of innings, that makes 13. If he batted on, with the likes of Vaas, Muralitharan, Pushpakumara and D'Silva to follow, he would again face the criticism that he hadn't looked aggressively for a win.

In the event, Ranatunga declared. India was set to make 373 runs in 103 overs. At a run rate of just over 3.6 per over. And that, on this wicket against a bowling lineup that, minus Vaas and Muralitharan, is definitely not life-threatening to a lineup boasting the likes of Sidhu, Azhar, Sachin and Ganguly, is do-able.

India needed to play out the 13 overs on the day without loss of wickets - when 11 of them were through (this report is incomplete insofar as I could not see the final two overs of play) India had scored 33 without loss.

One wicket should in fact have gone down when Sidhu attempted to slash Vaas through point, the extra bounce took the top edge and flashed between the keeper and Jayasuriya at first slip. It was Jayasuriya's catch, but the fielder stood rooted, as did the keeper, and Sidhu in the process got four more.

The Indian batsmen kept in touch with the required rate thus far due to one important reason - as many as six fielders were kept close to the bat, which left wide gaps in the field and that, in turn, meant that anything that got past the close fielders went to the fence. And the Lankan bowlers played into their hands by trying that shade too hard, going flat out and, in the process, occasionally doing too much, giving width and length and permitting the forcing shots.

So that is the position at the time of writing this (and again, this is written without taking the last two overs into consideration) India need, on the morrow, to make 340 runs off 90 overs, with all wickets in hand.

Sri Lanka, for its part, needs quick wickets in the first hour, which in turn permits them to keep the fielders close and intensify the pressure.

And both possibilities are very real. If the Indian openers bat the first hour out calmly, that alone puts the fielding side back on the defensive. Lose a wicket or two early, and India's penchant for falling prey to attacks of nerves could well trigger a fatal collapse - vide Barbados, of recent memory.

One other factor merits consideration - negative bowling. It is something Ranatunga has used in the past, and is certain to use again if he doesn't get early success. However, the tactic is not as valid in this situation as in the first innings here, or earlier, at the Premadasa.

Why? Because both at Premadasa and here, the batting side was playing in a vacuum. It had to make runs, it had to guard against making too many mistakes - but it never could get a fix on just how many runs it had to make, and in what time frame. Here, however, the target is fixed - x runs, y overs to go. And there is no way in the world you can consistently bowl a line and set a field negative enough to prevent batsmen of international calibre from taking three singles in an over.

Obviously, then, we are in for an interesting last day of play. Equally obviously, the play will test the nerve, the confidence, and calibre of both the sides.

So what more does a follower of cricket as a game need anyway, to make his day?

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