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India goes one up

A calm, no-fuss performance in the middle with both bat and ball saw India coast to a comfortable seven wicket victory against Sri Lanka in the first game of the three-match Pepsi Series of one dayers, at the Nehru Stadium in Guwahati, on December 22.

Rains these past few days, compounded by heavy mist, meant that the game began 45 minutes after the scheduled start of 08.45 am. This meant, further, that the covers were left on the pitch longer than usual -- a factor that, when coupled with sub-surface moisture, induces "sweating" of the pitch and provides some help to seam bowlers early on. At the same time, the pitch was liable to play slower as the day wore on, which meant batting second wouldn't be a breeze. Trick here, then, was for the team winning the toss to bowl first, use the conditions well to restrict the batting side to a low score and thus negate the slowness of the pitch when it came their own turn to bat.

India brought in the leg-spinner Sairaj Bahutule in Anil Kumble's slot, and Debashish Mohanty to replace Venkatesh Prasad, opting to leave Laxman, Kanitkar and Kuruvilla out of the playing eleven. Sri Lanka for its part dropped the out of form Hashan Tillekertane, and brought back all rounder Upul Chandana into the lineup.

Tendulkar called right, and promptly chose to bowl first. Javagal Srinath, in Sharjah, had tended to pitch a shade short and give the batsmen room to play strokes. Here, he rectified the error by bowling a very full line and, interestingly, opted to go round the wicket from the very first ball, to Sanath Jayasuriya. What Srinath was doing was to go wide of the crease, fire the ball in on a full length, aiming at off and middle and not giving the free-scoring opener the room he needed to free his arms for strokeplay. And having decided on his tactic, Srinath kept it up throughout his opening spell, to return figures of 7-4-10-0.

Runs proving impossible to get off him, it followed that the only option for the Lankans was to go after the other seamer. The ploy would have had a better chance of working against say an Abey Kuruvilla, who tends to bowl a straight line with no variation or movement. Mohanty, however, given the least help from conditions has the ability to both swing the ball in the air and seam it off the wicket -- and movement from a quick bowler makes the difference between the ball hitting the middle of the bat, and taking the edge.

That was what happened here. In the second over, Jayasuriya as per usual slashed at one from Mohanty on off stump seaming away, the ball took the outer edge and Jadeja judged well to hold at point. Atapattu, restricted by the tight line of both bowlers, chased at one from Mohanty again on off and seaming away, the late-moving leg cutter took the outer edge and Mongia behind the stumps held with ease. And Aravinda D'Silva fell to a smart piece of captaincy. Seeing the batsman consistently using the flick against the quick bowlers, Tendulkar brought in a short midwicket, Mohanty for his part produced the perfect inswinger, starting on off and swinging in to middle, drawing Aravinda into the flick, for Rajesh Chauhan to hold with ease. Sri Lanka 30/3. Interestingly, in the previous over, Aravinda was considerably rattled when a Srinath breakback, at express speed, beat him for pace and movement and thudded into his groin, leaving the batsman in some distress.

More than the fall of wickets, the usual flying start had been denied with both free-scoring batsmen back in the hut , Sri Lanka's progression being 14/1 in 5, 27/2 in 10, 43/3 in 15. This meant -- more so given that Lanka was short of one batsman in Tillekeratne -- that the remaining batsmen had to struggle to get runs, without the freedom of uninhibited strokeplay.

This is generally the point at which it is very easy to give the game away through shoddy bowling and lax fielding. To their credit, on the day, the Indians got everything right -- the bowlers bowled the perfect line, Mohanty bowling his 9 overs through to finish with 3/31, then yielding place to Ganguly whose first five overs produced a mere 17 runs while, at the other end, Rajesh Chauhan kept things tight with turn, bounce and flight. With Ranatunga and Mahanama forced to play tip-and-run, the Indian fielders -- unlike their normal habit of standing on the edge of the circle -- came closer and closer, and even singles became hard to get as Sri Lanka inched along to 63/3 in 20, 86/3 in 25.

Given that this was a 45 overs a side game, the pressure of not getting runs was going to tell on the batsmen. Ranatunga, attempting to step up the tempo, drove at Ganguly on the up, the movement off the seam took the edge and Robin Singh didn't need to move an inch at point to hold.

Romesh Kaluwitharana has been out of the Lankan side for quite a while now and, in fact, was back only because in the earlier Test series, Srinath had sent an express delivery through Lanka D'Silva's visor to split his lip. Here, the dimunitive Kalu looked to hit his side out of trouble, going after Saurav Ganguly's 6th over and plundering 4 fours, two superb drives punctuated by two streaky pulls just over midwicket. Despite the big hitting, though, good line and length bowling and very tight ground fielding kept Lanka crawling alone, at 110/4 in 30, 130/4 in 35.

The minute Ganguly got stick, Sachin took him off and brought Robin Singh on. At the other end Sairaj Bahutule, making his debut, bowled with enormous confidence, tossing the ball up, and keeping the batsmen quiet by mixing his leg breaks, top spinners and googlies to good effect. Robin, for his part, concentrated on going wide of the crease, bowling a very full length, and keeping the ball on the stumps, reducing the margin for error. Kalu attempted to flick from off stump, the slower pace of the ball defeated the stroke and gave a simple chance to midwicket and Lanka, going into the slog overs, had lost another key wicket.

Dharmasena hung around and kept Roshan Mahanama company, but in a bid to hit Robin over the top, holed out to mid off. And immediately thereafter, Mahanama -- who, after a rather shaky start against the opening bowlers, settled into playing superb percentage cricket, nudges, glides and checked drives bringing a profusion of singles -- fell in spectacular fashion. The ball from Robin was short and wide of off stump -- a juicy long hop for a batsman in form. Mahanama glided onto the front foot and lashed a drive through cover, the ball went like a bullet way to the right of Jadeja who flung himself a long way to pull off a blinder. The catch was symptomatic, really, of the Indian effort in the field. And with the last remaining batsman gone, Robin, continuing the policy that had given him rich dividends thus far, kept bowling straight and first Chandana fell, flicking across the line and missing completely to be trapped plumb, then Muralitharan perished to a wild heave that missed, for the straight ball to smash into middle stump.

Sri Lanka ended up on 172/9 off the allotted 45 overs -- a good 30 35 short of what would have been a challenging total on this pitch.

It is rare for India to get everything right in the field. If one pace bowler bowls well, the other gives runs. If both opening bowlers do their job, one or the other spinner -- in recent times, unfortunately, that has tended to be Kumble -- bowls the wrong line and gets hit. And if the spinners do their stuff, then the fifth bowler goes for runs. Here, it all clicked. Srinath was fast and restrictive (16 runs in just nine), Mohanty tight, controlled, and intelligent in his use of movement, Chauhan flighted, and frustrated free-scoring batsmen who found him unable to hit off line, Bahutule bowled with a confidence that belied the fact that he is making his debut (what a difference it makes, really, when a leg-spinner actually turns the ball) and first Ganguly, then Robin, bowled within themselves, kept a dead straight line and used the conditions admirably. And backing it all up was a clean, no-nonsense performance in the field, that added to the pressure by making singles hard to come by.

India, by virtue of taking a while longer to complete its overs, was penalised two overs and ended up having to get to the target in 43 overs. Jadeja and Ganguly opened, and Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Vaas and Sajeewa D'Silva bowled superbly at the start of the innings. Both bowlers, like the Indians before them, bowled a full line, kept the ball on the stumps, and made run-scoring very difficult for the openers.

When that happens, Jadeja tends to look for very tight singles -- the one he tried to take here, though, was non-existent. Ganguly drove hard, but straight to the cover fielder, the pace at which the ball was going meant there was no run there, Jadeja however raced through, and found himself on the same side of the pitch as Ganguly. Two overs later, Ganguly too perished, attempting to drive inside out and on the up at a straight ball from Vaas that took the inner edge to crash onto the stumps, and India at the end of ten overs was dead level with Sri Lanka, both teams at that stage being 27/2.

Sachin Tendulkar, here, made the difference. When he is out of form, it shows in the way he bats, his strokes finding the fielders with unerring regularity. By the same token, when his touch and confidence are high, he is a master of working the gaps -- and that is what he proceeded to do, playing gently, not hitting too hard, just guiding the ball to the left or right of the fielders and taking singles off almost every ball he faced. In fact, in his first 48 runs, there was just one four, the rest coming through singles and twos with deft placements.

At the other end, Sidhu started out trying to belt the cover off every ball, only to hit straight to fielders. A couple of overs of this, and wisdom dawned, the batsman beginning to check his shots, push into the outfield and match his captain in running. What these two needed to do was keep the singles coming, and they did it to very good effect, the score moving along from 27/2 in 10, to 55/2 in 15 and 83/2 in 20.

One feature of Sachin's innings on the day -- and the reason why the Lankan spinners failed to restrict the Indian batsmen -- was that he kept sweeping, playing it in controlled fashion, to the deep fielders, and getting runs at will. Sidhu cut that shot out of his repertoire, however, until a rather wild heave at Muralitharan saw him top-edge to backward square. By then, however, he had done his job, keeping his captain company in a 68-run partnership at a rate of around 4+ per over that kept the target well in sight.

Azharuddin came in and looked rather on edge, his normally wristy play finding the fielders and keeping him relatively runless. Interestingly -- more so given some of the media rumours doing the rounds -- Sachin, by then well set and in ominous touch, was seen guiding the senior partner along, warning him of areas in the pitch where the ball was keeping low, rotating the strike and ensuring that the pressure did not build up.

Symptomatic of this phase of Tendulkar's batting was over number 33, bowled by Muralitharan. For the previous three, four overs, Azhar was finding run-making very difficult, and the asking rate had climbed to around 4.5 per over. In one blistering assault, Sachin took 16 off a Muralitharan over -- a sweep, a lofted on drive, a blazing cover drive and another sweep -- and suddenly, the required run rate was back down again and the pressure off.

Azhar then chipped in with a cover drive off Upul Chandana and a delicate late cut off Murali for two fours, and India coasted home with 5.1 overs, and seven wickets, to spare.

Tendulkar, often criticised for not guiding his team home, this time kept his head well down. Of his six fours, one came right in the beginning when he greeted Muralitharan with a straight four off his first ball. Four more came in the 33rd over, and one in the 35th. For the rest of his innings, he played the angles, leaning well forward, letting the ball come on, and running the fielders ragged by placing just to the left or right and taking the singles with ease.

Interestingly, in course of his innings of 82 off 86 deliveries, he became the only Indian to complete 1000 runs in a calendar year in both Tests and one-dayers -- in fact, only three players have got to the double milestone this year, the other two being Aravinda and Jayasuriya. And, in the process of becoming the third to do the double, Tendulkar appears to have answered criticism that his batting has been badly affected by captaincy.

Robin Singh -- quite rightly, too -- was adjudged man of the match for his career best spell. But Robin got it right when, in the presentation ceremony, he said the award should have gone to the team -- for once, everyone did their bit, to pull off a collective win and go one up in the three match series.

And this sets up an interesting Christmas Day, when the two teams play each other in the second game at Indore.

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