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It's West Indies versus England at Sharjah

The organisers at Sharjah must, about now, be stewing -- neither India, nor Pakistan, in the final of the Champions' Trophy. Instead, it is West Indies versus England -- and the prospect of a near empty stadium for the final on Friday.

If the stadium is empty on Friday, though, it would be rather sad. England, reinventing itself, changing its grammar, putting together a lineup of young, unheralded cricketers under a smiling, calm skipper, won three out of three. The West Indies, defeated, indeed humiliated, in the recent Test series on Pakistan soil, coming back with a bang to beat Pakistan and India in style to enter the final -- I would think two fighting teams like this need to be celebrated with a full house.

Meanwhile, to the game of the day. India made two big changes -- Robin Singh and Kuruvilla being dropped, Rahul Dravid and Venkatesh Prasad coming into the side in their place.

Why? Robin, I suspect, was dropped not as "punishment" for that ungainly heave in his previous game which got him out off the first ball, but for being totally innocuous with the ball throughout this tournament. The team management obviously figuring, here, that since batting had to win this game, they might as well go in with an extra bat. As for Kuruvilla, the question was not why, but why so late -- every single commentator and expert worth the name, and the lineup includes the likes of Geoffrey Boycott and Michael Holding, have been arguing that Prasad with his variations should make the lineup ahead of Kuruvilla anyway.

What India needed to do was win the toss -- since it was in a position of having to get to the target within a certain number of overs to qualify, it made sense to chase knowing just what they had to do. And Sachin Tendulkar got the first part of his job right, when he called right, then choose to bat second.

India, first up, needed to stop the West Indies from getting off to a flier. Srinath bowling a tight restrictive line, and Prasad, mixing his deliveries very well and keeping the batsmen tentative, managed just that, and Philo Wallace, who looked irritated at his own inability to get the bowlers away, tried a very awkward half-pull, half paddle at a ball from Srinath on middle and off, putting up a simple catch to square leg.

Brian Lara came in and should have gone immediately, when he slashed at Srinath, the ball getting the under edge and Karim behind the stumps being fractionally slow to react, letting the ball drop at his feet. Tendulkar brought on Kumble as first change. At the time, on our chat site, we were discussing how Chauhan, the off spinner -- who, moreover, is on a confidence high -- would have been the far better choice. Lara underlined the error when he first savagely pulled a short one from the leggie for four, then came down the track and swung him one handed over long off for six, then laid back and cut for another four.

Chauhan promptly came on for the next over, and Lara looked in a hurry to get after him as well. Twice, he came down the track, both times Chauhan quickly dropped it short and forced the batsman to defend. Ball three, action replay except that Chauhan held this one back a bit, Lara, flicking, played too early and was comfortably caught at midwicket for 23 off 20, a rather inexplicable innings as Windies hopes of putting up a huge score depended on him.

Hooper and Williams mounted a recovery act, pushing singles along and keeping the scoring to around the 4.2 an over mark. However, the rate of progression -- 69/2 in 15, 87/2 in 20, 109/2 in 25, 130/2 in 30 -- wasn't quite putting the Windies on course for the score of around 250 they were looking at, so Hooper tried to do something about it, came down the track to Ganguly and unerringly found the fielder at long off. 38 off 51 with a solitary four -- a good, controlled knock, Hooper however giving it up just when he looked set for another big one.

Much has been written, in critical vein, about Tendulkar's captaincy. Today, he got it right pretty much all the way. The field to the seamers was tight and restrictive, barring the aberration of bringing Kumble on, Chauhan to the left handed Lara got the wicket, and then realising that he was short one bowler, he brought himself on in tandem with Ganguly and together, the two kept it tight, keeping the inform Hooper and the well set Williams, who has been having a lovely tournament thus far, on a leash. And when Chanderpaul came in, Tendulkar immediately brought the off spinner back on -- the result, Chauhan bowled a series of deliveries on off, not letting the left hander have any room to hit through the line, then tossed one up just outside off, the batsman promptly went for the drive, the ball turned and found the edge and Jadeja at point had no problems holding.

169/4 in 40, and again, Tendulkar brought back Prasad in tandem with Kumble. Prasad bowled a superb second spell, using his slower ball in tandem with the yorker to such good effect that runs were next to impossible to come by. At the other end, Kumble produced a yorker -- rather strange word to use for a leg spinner, but Kumble these days is more gentle medium pacer than leg-spinner anyway -- to account for Simmons, Srinath yorked Franklyn Rose as the batsman went for a huge hit, and Windies in the end managed just 40 in the last ten overs, to finish on 229/6 in 50 overs.

If the West Indies got to that score, full credit needs to go to man of the match Stewart Williams. He has immense talent and, in fact, had a good run against Pakistan in the recent Test series. Here, he showed, besides his usual gift for impeccable timing and placement especially off the back foot, a calm concentration that let him bat through the innings, ending unconquered on 105. A very responsible, thoughtful knock, and one that deserved -- and got -- the Man of the Match nomination.

For India, Chauhan and Prasad excelled. The former with 30 for two accounting for both left handers, the latter with figures of none for 39 in his ten, bowling with tight control both at the beginning and at the death. Kumble went for 52 in his ten, Srinath 2/48 in nine. If Chauhan's confidence and rediscovered ability to really spin the ball and trouble batsmen was a gain of the Tests against Lanka and this ODI series, then Kumble's lapse into his "medium pace" style of bowling remains a distinct minus. It is about time the Indian selectors rethought the leg spinner's immediate future -- playing him in the side is, these days, merely keeping a better spinner out of it, and given the success even the part time spin of Chanderpaul and Hooper were to have earlier, one wonders why a non-spinner played when a Nilesh Kulkarni, with his slanting line and ability to gain bounce and turn from a height, would have proved so much more effective.

Altogether, barring the aberration of Kumble, a controlled exhibition by the Indians with the ball. The fielding, however, was pretty sloppy, far too many misfields giving away at an estimate a good 20 runs more than the West Indies should have got. Rather surprisingly Jadeja, one of the surest fielders in cricket, was one culprit. And Sidhu, who for his exploits in the field against South Africa had entire stadia cheering, went back to his earlier, rather slipshod mode.

For India, the task was simple -- get 230 to win. More importantly, get 230 inside 45.1 overs to top the Windies run rate and make the finals.

Sidhu and Ganguly opened for India and, to their credit, performed exactly to the gameplan. Keeping in mind that Courtney Walsh is not the kind of bowler you hit around the park, they worked the singles against the Windies skipper, looked for runs off Rose and, in fact, took 35 off the six overs he bowled. In the process, Ganguly showed that he's learnt a new trick -- these days, after the first five, six overs, he tends to come dancing down the wicket to the quick bowler, and here he did it to Rose to hit over the sightscreen -- not the easiest thing to do to a genuine quick.

India 16/0 in 5, 48/0 in 10, 64/0 in 15, and the platform seemed in place.

Walsh read the situation right and brought on spin from both ends, relying on Rawl Lewis (easily the find of this particular tournament, and capable of prodigious turn in the manner trade-marked by Shane Warne) and Hooper to stem the easy accumulation of runs.

Sidhu really needs to learn to curb his impetuosity against spin. In one over, Lewis kept him very quiet, the turn defeating Sidhu's repeated attempts to hit out. What he needed to have done was just taken the single and let the left hander handle the bowler -- instead, he predictably came down the track, launched Lewis straight down mid off's throat in a rather needless dismissal.

Dravid was the new man in and, from the way he played, it seems the criticism that he never takes singles, and doesn't rotate strike, has been heard loud and clear. Here, he and Ganguly did it just right -- singles at every opportunity, the strike rotated constantly and India, at 112/1 in 25, seemed well on course, remembering that the remainder of the target (118 in 20 at under six an over) seemed eminently achievable -- more so given the long batting lineup. The Indians merely needed, at this point, to play with sanity and sense, keep working the singles, chipping away at the target and making sure that the ask rate did not climb above the 6 an over rate.

Thus, the first 25 overs easily belonged to India -- and that is precisely what makes the insanity of the second part of the innings totally inexplicable. In fact, the mayhem really began in over number 29. First, Ganguly went down the track looking to hit Hooper over the top, as he had done a couple of times earlier. This time, he telegraphed it, Hooper bowled wide of off, Ganguly couldn't cover the angle and the stumping was simplicity itself. 70 off 94 with five fours and a six -- the left-handed opener had turned in another good innings, but at the same time, he needs to take a lesson from the likes of Williams, of Hooper before him -- players who, when they get in and get set, just go on and on till the whole job is done.

Two balls later, Sachin Tendulkar was walking back. He played Hooper to deep midwicket, ran the first like lightning, called for the second and slipped on the turn. Rawl Lewis, in a magnificient display of fielding, raced round, picked up and in the same motion, rocketed a throw right in over the bails from near the boundary line that saw the Indian skipper marginally out of his ground.

That brought Mohammad Azharuddin to the wicket. And with him, a hint of sadness. Azhar is in the evening of his career. Last year and earlier this year, he was getting quite a reputation of being uncaring, of carelessness, of a care-a-damn attitude with the bat. It is an attitude that got him dropped for the Independence Cup at home. When picked again, Azhar seemed to have found a new lease of batting life, playing with enormous control and, oftentimes, sheer brilliance through Sri Lanka and Toronto. And that's it -- Pakistan, the home series against Sri Lanka and now three games here, Azhar appears to have hit the mental skids again.

Today's exhibition by him was, sad though it is to use this word for a batsman of his eminence (he in fact surpassed Javed Miandad as the highest run scorer in ODIs in his knock of four) pathetic. Right from the first ball, he kept pushing straight to a fielder, racing down the track with a lack of judgement strange in a player normally so sure of himself in his calling, and during his eight ball tenure at the wicket, nearly managed to get himself, and his partner, out three times. Fourth time unlucky, Dravid flicked, the ball went straight to square leg, there was no single there even for the biggest of optimists, Dravid's "NO" was loud enough to resonate off the stump mike into our ears -- but Azhar alone appeared not to have heard it at all. Off he went, charging down the track despite repeated "get backs", then finally scrambled back in time to be four yards or more out of his ground when the stumps were broken, and walked back to the pavilion.

And as he walked, I found myself wishing that he hadn't, with that brief exhibition out in the middle, not given more ammunition to the Manoj Prabhakars of this world.

Ajay Jadeja came in and restored some sanity to the running between wickets, but Dravid promptly lost his wicket. The right hander had seen that there was no third man, and consistently got runs by opening the bat face to run the ball down in that region. In fact, his first scoring stroke was a glide, open face of the bat, down to third man for four off Mervyn Dillon. Trick to that shot though is that you can play it safely only to deliveries outside off stump. Here, he tried it to one bang on off, missed, and was bowled. 31 off 45 with just one four, and that too his first scoring stroke, showed he could take singles and keep going at a more than decent rate -- his dismissal, however, showed that he needs to go a fair way yet to get the kind of maturity that enables more experienced batsmen to hang around to finish off what they have begun.

Saba Karim batting at seven is perfectly placed. In the makeshift opener's slot, his batting is a bit hit or miss. When he comes in lower down, though, he more often than not displays a cool head and a tendency not to panic. An extraordinary shot -- I don't recall the last time I've seen anyone step onto the back foot to a spinner bowling on middle stump on a good length, let the ball come up and flat bat it over the bowler's head for six, that takes enormous power and impeccable timing -- indicated that he was prepared to make a fight of it. Only, Jadeja wasn't -- a totally misguided attempt to swing a ball on off round to leg saw Hooper grinning with delight as the stump went askew.

While on this, I fail to understand a particular attitude that keeps cropping up not just in the Indian side, but in fact in most teams. Just who brought in this thinking that the way to get quick runs towards the end is hit across the line? All your early days, when learning the game, you are taught to play in line -- because it is demonstrably the right thing to do. So why hit across? A bowler who keeps it up can't miss if you do that -- the full length makes it pretty axiomatic that you miss with the swipe, and the straight line makes sure that the bowler doesn't miss. I mean, why do these guys suppose top quality fast bowlers, in the death, merely concentrate on bowling a straight line? Because they know batsmen will look to hit across the line -- with disastrous results.

Common sense, as I keep finding out, appears to be the most uncommon commodity among cricketers, Indian or, indeed, remembering Pakistan's performance the previous day, otherwise.

From that point on, to describe the rest of the innings becomes meaningless. Karim did all he could -- 26 off 22 with a four and a six before Chanderpaul bowled him round his legs attempting to sweep. At which point, the rest of the tail decided enough was enough, and swiped their way to extinction.

India's innings ended on 188. Which, considering that Ganguly had gone with the score at 126, can only be described in one word -- apalling. And again, the conclusion becomes inevitable -- talent is nothing, unless backed by strength of mind and application. I mean, a team without talent collapsing in this fashion would have been understood even by their most ardent supporters for. But when a team with this kind of personnel flops, badly, time and time again, I am afraid they will not be forgiven by fans who do deserve more at their hands than such slipshod tendencies.

At the end of it all, India can sit back and muse on one simple fact -- they threw it away. And nothing underlines it so clearly as the bowling figures for the West Indies. Walsh goes wicketless, his 7 overs yielding 24 and given that he is their most restrictive bowler, that is qualifies as good work. Rose goes for 35 in six. Dillon, 30 in six. Rawl Lewis has tormented all three teams, so his one for 38 in 10 can be understood in context of the fact that he really is a good bowler.

But figures of 8.2-0-37-4 for Hooper? 5-0-18-3 for Chanderpaul?

Those figures, with all respect to the gentlemen concerned who, in the circumstances, kept the right line and length and let the batsmen do the rest, can only be described as sheer lack of application on the part of the batting side.

Meanwhile, in all this, I wonder if connoisseurs of the game in Sharjah will realise what a crackerjack final there is lined up? The new look England side against a rejuvenated West Indies side. For England, bowling that ranges from slow, to slower. Against them, three quick bowlers but, more importantly from an England point of view, three spin bowlers. On a track that, by Friday, will really turn thanks to its continued baking in the sun. Should be a treat, this game.