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DEAR REDIFF

Reputations don't get wickets - good bowling does!

Prem Panicker

When the teams were announced for the replayed third ODI between India and Sri Lanka on Sunday, one thing was immediately obvious - Arjuna Ranatunga and the Sri Lankan management were done with magnanimous experimentation, with letting junior players get a feel of the big time.

They were coming out to win this one, and to round off a clean sweep before a full-house at the Sinhalese Sports Stadium - as witness the return to the ranks of Muralitharan and Sajeewa D'Silva, both rested for Saturday's game. Chaminda Vaas (nursing an injured ankle, and packing up for a refresher course at the MRF Academy in Chennai) alone was missing from the regular Lankan lineup - but then, Duleep Liyanage wasn't exactly some sort of country cousin, being a nippy bowler with a smooth, flowing action, an ability to move the ball both ways, immaculate control and a decent ability with the bat as well - all of which were why he was preferred to Ravindra Pushpakumara.

The Indians meanwhile stuck to the lineup they fielded on Saturday. And, on winning the toss, opted to bowl first. An interesting - and sensible - decision by Sachin Tendulkar, for two reasons. First, the rain on Saturday would have left moisture on the pitch. Cover it overnight, and the resulting 'sweating' would mean some assistance to the medium pacers in the early stages of the match, before the track settled down to play nice and easy. Which alone is a good enough reason for batting first. Another one, if backup is needed, lies in the fact that India's strength is obviously not in the bowling department - more so given that its fielders, despite the presence of good performers like Jadeja, Azhar, Robin and Sachin himself, are not capable of giving the bowlers the kind of committed support they need. Hence, it made sense for India to play to its strength, and chase rather than defend.

Given the pitch conditions, it was obvious that India would open with its medium pacers, and not with Rajesh Chauhan as in a couple of earlier games. And interestingly, the minute the surface showed some sign of life, both Kuruvilla and Prasad were transformed from the mediocrities of early games, and spurred into bowling a tight line and length. Prasad concentrated on his strength, keeping the ball on a three quarter length and cutting his fingers across the seam to run the ball both ways off the seam, while Kuruvilla concentrated on going wide of the crease to angle the ball into the batsman's pads.

More to the point, Kuruvilla did not give Jayasuriya the width he loves outside off stump, and the left hander, finding his favourite shot blocked, opted for the pick-up flick to a ball on middle and off line - holing out, predictably, to the man at backward square. The positioning of India's best fielder, Ajay Jadeja, out in the country indicated that the fielding side had pre-planned this line of attack - and raised the question of why, in earlier games, it did not use its collective head in similar fashion.

The Lankans have been a bit spoilt of late by the blazing starts Jayasuriya provides. Here, finding the free-scoring opener going back into the hut with the score at 3, Atapattu panicked. Taking on the onus of trying to up the Lankan run-rate (an uncharacteristic 17/1 in 5 overs), the right hander slashed at a ball from Kuruvilla outside off, gave Azharuddin the easiest of catches at slip, and reduced the batting side to 22/2.

So far, so good. In fact, Lanka were 44/2 in 10 - which, for a fielding side going up against the world champions, is in fact very good.

At this point came the first tactical error - namely, the bringing on of Nilesh Kulkarni in over number 11. The tall left-arm spinner is an aggressive bowler, in the sense that he is the kind who tosses them up, varies length and line, looks to have the batsmen playing at him in a bid to induce mistakes. The fact that his three victims on the day were no less than Mahanama, Aravinda and Ranatunga merely underlines this.

What he is not, is a defensive bowler - which in turn means that if he bowls when field restrictions are in place, batsmen are more in a position to club him over the infield than they would be able to slog say a Robin Singh, whose forte is accurate, wicket to wicket bowling. Kulkarni thus came on - and Aravinda D'Silva underlined the folly of the move when he went and stood about two feet outside leg stump to the left-arm bowler. The challenge was obvious - bowl at his pads and he would flick to leg, secure in the knowledge that there was no fielder covering the boundary there. Bowl to the stumps, and given that his position outside it gave him room to swing his arms, he would hit over the infield on the off. Which is just what he did, with the result that Kulkarni went for 33 off his first three overs, and Lanka had been let off the hook to some degree.

Two other mistakes allowed the Lankans to get out of prison at that stage. The first relates to field placing - India's think tank prefers textbook fields. Thus, for a right hander playing a spinner, the off side is packed, the leg side has just three in front and no one behind. Roshan Mahanama has, in each of his innings thus far, relied on the ploy of sticking his right foot way out in front and outside off stump (to negate possible LBW appeals) and let the ball come on, paddling it around to leg for runs. He did it again, here, with consistency and profit - and the obvious counter, of keeping a short fine leg to block that shot, force the batsman to look for runs elsewhere, did not apparently occur to the Indian strategists.

The other mistake was in the placing of the onside field - again, midwicket was placed in an orthodox position, and mid on placed deep, on the boundary. Thus, during the middle overs, when boundaries were totally hard to come by - batsmen of the calibre of Mahanama and Aravinda went through a phase of 64 deliveries without a four, on one occasion - both players were able to keep the run rate at five or more per over simply by stepping right back, waiting for the ball, and firmly pushing to the onside, guaranteeing them a single. Again, a short midwicket or short mid off was the obvious counter - the Indian strategy, however, was to place the fielders in boundary-saving positions, in the process forgetting that it is not fours alone that keep the scoreboard moving, four or five singles per over being just as good.

The Sri Lankan progress in the middle overs - 82/2 in 15, 105/3 in 20, 124/4 in 25, 151/4 in 30, 170/4 in 35, 203/5 in 40 - was, in comparison to the sort of rates the side regularly goes at, pedestrian. And the main reason for that was that the side kept losing wickets at regular intervals - which in turn underlines an axiom of one day cricket, and casts doubt on India's strategy in past outings.

Here, it was the spinners who did the damage. Kulkarni, coming back for his second spell, bowled with intelligence to first do for Mahanama. Noticing that the right hand batsman was regularly trying to paddle to leg - and his exaggerated movement of the front foot to outside off meant that the leg stump was partly visible to the bowler - Kulkarni went round the wicket, and bowled a tossed up one of fuller length, using the flipper instead of the regulation turner. The fuller length meant that the ball went under Mahanama's bat, the flipper racing straight through to crash into leg stump and bowl the batsman round his pads.

Even more interesting was his dismissal of Arjuna Ranatunga, just eight runs later. The Lankan skipper is a fluent driver through the off. So again, Kulkarni tossed one up outside off, inviting the drive. The same line, with a bowler like Kumble bowling it, would have fetched four. Kulkarni, however, makes the ball turn - and in this instance, it turned sharply in to the left-hander, beating the drive to crash into the top of off stump.

In the process, Kulkarni underlined a point that India has been in danger of forgetting in the recent past - reputations, unless backed up by form, do not get wickets. Only good bowling does. In other words, an opposing batsman is not likely to roll over and play dead just because an Anil Kumble, who in his halcyon period was bowling them over like ten pins, takes the ball. Kumble increasingly has been a defensive bowler - here, Kulkarni attacked and kept right on attacking. And the result - though he went for 33-odd in his first three overs, bowling at a time when he should ideally not be used, he came back to take 3 for 40 in his next seven overs, and those three wickets that of three of the four most prolific batsmen in the Lankan ranks.

At the other end, Chauhan complimented Kulkarni very well, keeping a tight line on off stump, turning the ball sharply in to incommode batsmen used to swinging their arms freely, and ending up with a very good return of one for 43 off his ten overs. And on the day, Sachin Tendulkar - with one exception - used his bowlers well, rotating them in short spells, preventing the opposing batsmen from settling into a rhythm. The only errors came first, in using Kulkarni during the first 15 and, second, for bowling Ganguly in the 38th over, when bowlers of his quality - and Singh's - are ideal for the period between the 15th and the 35th, to plug one end up while spinners attack at the other.

The Lankan batting, for its part, utilised the conditions, and took advantage of the opposition's mistakes, to optimum advantage. Mahanama, with no fielder covering the area behind his pads on the leg, got three of his five fours in that region, not to mention innumerable singles and twos. Aravinda, who began by blazing away, changed gears once the field spread out, and with monotonous inevitability, began stepping onto his back foot, letting the ball come on, and then stroking the single gently to long on and midwicket, both fielders placed deep enough to enable the batsman to walk the single. What was impressive about Aravinda's innings was his concentration - seeing wickets fall at the other end, he reined in his aggressive instincts, and concentrated on playing the long innings, keeping the board ticking over and working at being out there as long as he could.

"I like this boy, he thinks with his head," said Bruce Yardley, paying a visit to the television commentary box, as Lanka D'Silva walked out at the fall of Mahanama's wicket. The reason why was almost immediately obvious. Given that Aravinda at that stage - Mahanama was out before over number 30 - would want to take fewer risks and concentrate on staying there, Lanka for his part took on the onus of run scoring. He stepped back on his stumps to open the bat face and run to the vacant third man region, moved across the stumps to flick balls to leg from outside off for twos, and ensured that he was going along, always, at close to a run a ball. Good, intelligent, committed batting - the kind that frees the senior partner of pressure. Had Lanka D'Silva allowed himself to be tied down, his illustrious namesake would have come under pressure to keep the tempo going. As it happened, Aravinda was so comfortable with his partner that he began taking a single off the first ball, letting the keeper-batsman face the other five. Lanka D'Silva may not be as explosive as Romesh Kaluwitharana - but his keeping is as good, and 50 off 58, coming in with his side 113/4 before the halfway mark, argues an impeccable temperament.

Lanka went in to the slog with five down for 203 in 40 overs - and thanks to Aravinda's controlled aggression and some lusty hitting by Liyanage and Chandana, got to 264 - a total eminently chaseable on a wicket that had in the bright afternoon sun lost every hint of overnight moisture.

For India, Kuruvilla for once discovered his control to not only take out the two openers, but also to return for two more wickets. Prasad, meanwhile, bowled six tight overs - but his arm was obviously troubling him, to an extent that he was, for the major part of the innings, lobbing throws underarm from the boundary in a manner reminiscent of Javagal Srinath in South Africa. Raises yet another question - why do we, time and again, persist with an obviously injured bowler, waiting for him to completely break down, when the logical thing to do is rest him at the first sign of injury to prevent the risk of aggravating it? Prasad could so easily have been rested, and Debashish Mohanty, who did enough with the ball in the Tests to suggest that he could bowl with pace and control, been given his debut. Like with Kumble, however, the Indian thinking seems to be to persist with an obviously unfit Prasad in the hope that his reputation alone will scare rival batsmen. Funny, that.

Before moving on to the Indian reply, a passing thought. For the first time in this season against India, Sri Lanka is all out inside the distance. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the Indian spinners actually were turning the ball and, ergo, picking up wickets. And with the fact that the Indian bowlers - for once, seven of them were used - were bowled in short, tight spells?

Could it just be that this performance underlines the fact that of late, Indian cricket has forgotten - not bothered to learn? - the basics?

The Indian innings