Six wins out of six, as RSA go to the top of the class

Prem Panicker

The Bible is not exactly where you want to look for cricketing wisdom - but when I see India play, I keep remembering the story of those talents.

While I am a bit hazy about the details, I seem to remember that it was about these blokes who went forth with a talent apiece... one multiplied his, the other kept his safe and brought it back unused.

If the Bible were being re-written today, those two blokes would be India and RSA. The latter uses its talents and even ensures that the contribution of the team is bigger than the sum of the individual parts. India for its part keeps its talents in its hip pocket, and ends up - deservedly - on the losing side time and again.

It was so again today. The wicket was just right for India to succeed. The toss went in their favour. The opening partnership was solid, substantial, and well-paced. The platform for the winning total was there.

But...

The pitch, teams, and such

Buffalo Park, East London, has always been a low-scoring venue. Barring one aberration, when a good batting track saw New Zealand top the 250 mark and Sri Lanka overhaul it with ease way back in December 1994, teams batting second have struggled to go over the 200 mark especially in the second innings.

And on the day, the wicket produced for this tie was a bit of an atrocity - or, in Cronje's favourite phrase, a "nightmare". A crack wide as the Grand Canyon on one side of the wicket meant that batsmen would always experience the element of doubt. It also meant that the older ball would keep lower, making late-innings slogs rather difficult to pull off.

India made the expected change, resting Ankola and bringing in Sunil Joshi to help Kumble exploit the conditions. A good move - Ankola has bowled well in this series thus far, besides striking a few useful blows with the bat, but the "horses for courses" principle dictated the change in lineup.

South Africa, for its part, went in with the same lineup as the one that one the previous outing against India two days ago.

The advantage was always going to be with the team winning the toss, and Sachin Tendulkar called correctly, to bring a rueful grin to the face of rival skipper Hansie Cronje. The batting side would need to get off to a sound start, then use the platform to raise 240 or more on the board - which, in the conditions, would be a good total to defend, even against an SA batting lineup firing on all cylinders.

The Indian innings

For two players who have been shunted to every conceivable position in the batting order and then some, Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly took to the opener's slots here with a maturity that should ensure that they get the job by right for some time to come.

Dravid, as always, was the calm accumulator. Unlike in the previous outing, when he had a problem finding the singles, Dravid on the day was on song from ball one, behind the line and defending to the better deliveries, working anything outside the stumps for quick singles and, as far as possible, giving the strike to Saurav Ganguly. In fact, the way these two played, it appeared as if they have decided that their roles will be defined thus - Ganguly the run-maker, Dravid the anchor.

Ganguly, for his part, was grace and timing personified. In addition to his impeccable-as-usual drives square, and through the covers, the left-hander decided, today, to play strokes on the leg side as well. Result, over number four, Jacques Kallis pitched short, Ganguly swivelled, got under it and hit it up and over midwicket for a six. Another short ball was ruthlessly pulled through the same region, this one for four. And for the first time in this series, runs came at a nice, easy clip. 43/0 in 10, 75/0 in 20, 101/0 in 25...

If there is one problem with this opening combo, then it lies in the running between wickets, and Ganguly, unfortunately, is the chief culprit here. Where one-day wisdom dictates that you run the first single at your fastest speed, Ganguly tends to saunter along, rather like he was walking the dog in the park - with the result that this pair converts threes into twos, twos into ones and sharp singles into dot balls with alarming regularity. Fair enough that they get more than their fair share of fours, but surely the odd singles are not to be despised?

And inevitably, perhaps, a run out ended the partnership when Ganguly pushed into the covers and called, Dravid responded, Kirsten raced in and did the needful with Dravid (53 off 71 with 5 fours) just short. 117/1, and the best opening partnership, quantitatively and qualititatively, that India has had in a very long time.

The original batting order indicated that Saba Karim would, if a wicket fell early, come in as pinch hitter instead of Srinath. Good thing too, given Srinath's recent performances with the bat which, in the most complimentary language, can only be called brainless. But with the openers going well into the 27th over, Sachin Tendulkar did the right thing and came out himself at first drop. And what is more, looked in very good touch - when Cronje held one back, Sachin waited on it, adjusted his stroke and from what looked like a gentle push to square leg, left even Jonty Rhodes standing as he found the fence. Cronje in fact applauded the stroke on his follow through. And broke into applause again when, off the very next ball, Sachin came down the track and played the perfect extra cover drive for four more. But there's this - when it goes wrong, it goes wrong with remarkable consistency - and so it was for Sachin Tendulkar (14 off 24 with two fours) on the day, when he flicked Lance Klusener for Darryl Cullinan, at midwicket, to take a very well judged catch, low to his left.

That brought Azharuddin to the wicket. And as usual, the wristy middle order batsman got into his stride from ball one, finding the gaps with consummate ease, getting singles at will and whenever length and line varied by a fraction from the ideal, using those tensile wrists to find two superbly timed fours. And then came tragedy of sorts, the ball from Donald swerving in, landing right on the crack, and cutting in after pitching. Azhar (13 off 12 with two fours) flicked down the line the ball should have been coming at, but the unexpected movement defeated him, and he was bowled for Donald, who till then had been rendered ineffective by the Indian batsmen for once, to get his first wicket. India, from 117/1, was now 170/3.

Jadeja, the next batsman in, was his usual busy self, running at breakneck speed and, by some miracle, even making the normally placid Ganguly sprint at Olympic speeds. In fact, what Jadeja does is call, then put his head down and run like the devils in hell are after him, thus leaving Ganguly no option but to follow suit - maybe Dravid needs to take points from this? But somehow, on the day, Jadeja's timing was a shade off on the bigger hits - it appeared as if the slower pace of the wicket was defeating him, time and again.

Ganguly, meanwhile, was progressing well and looked headed for his first ODI 100, when he was run out. And the Bengal southpaw has only himself to blame. He pushed just to the right of Jonty Rhodes at midwicket and, strangely for such a circumspect runner, took off blindly. By the time he realised that Jadeja was rooted to his crease, Rhodes had dived, fielded, and relayed back to Richardson to catch Ganguly (83 off 136 with one six and six fours) way out of his crease. India 176/4. Ganguly missed the 100, but did get to share the Man of the Match with Gary Kirsten, if that is any consolation.

Jadeja (19 from 29), as mentioned earlier, wasn't exactly timing them right today, and finally, realising overs were running out (India in 45 overs were 196/4, after being 173/3 in 490), drove on the up at Lance Klusener for Cronje to gake a good catch at mid on. India 216/5.

Robin Singh, for his part, continued his good form with the bat. The thing with the left hander is that he looks for - and invariably finds - runs off every ball. If possible - that is, if the ball is of fuller length, he uses his minimal backswing, backed by shoulder power, to carry the ball over the fielders (and owes his continued success to the fact that he is very sure of where the fielders are, and just where the gaps exist) - and if the ball is not hittable, then he places into the gaps and races through for runs. In the event, he turned in yet another classic cameo, of 32 not out off 21 with 3 fours, and with Saba Karim getting 7 off 11, took India to 232 for five in 50.

A good score, yes. But given that India, at the 35 over mark, were 149 for the loss of just one wicket, the total was a good 25, 30 runs less than India could have achieved. One reason was that Ganguly, who was well set, got out in the 40th over, which meant that at the slog, there were two new batsmen at the crease. Another was the fact that the wicket kept low, and the ball did not come on to the bat. And the third vital factor was that the SA bowlers bowled superbly at the end - the ball was bowled at three quarter pace, absolutely no use of the shoulder so the ball never got up, and the line bang on the stumps.

And again, the bowling effort was backed up by the usual brilliance in the field - the SA outfit, every morning before the game, give themselves a good hour in the field, practising sliding stops, throw ins and hitting the stumps. And always, they are aggressively at you, never letting you relax, never giving away an easy run, making you work twice as hard for what you make as you would against any other side... and this, more than anything else, explains the continuing success of this side.

Meanwhile, a word about the umpiring - wrong decisions are part of the game, but sometimes, it becomes hard to understand just what the umpire was thinking of when he gives a particular verdict. When Ganguly was in his 40s, Allan Donald produced a beauty, lifting and leaving the batsman on off stump. The edge was very clear, the take by Richardson clinical, and even Ganguly couldn't believe his eyes when the appeal was turned down. Strike one for umpire Orchard.

The South African innings

When Sunil Gavaskar himself criticises Sachin Tendulkar's captaincy, it follows that there is something drastically wrong - for Gavaskar the commentator makes no secret, ever, of his partiality for Tendulkar the player. But on the day, even Gavaskar was moved to comment that he was "unimpressed" with Tendulkar's captaincy - and if anything, the former Test star erred on the side of understatement.

What was the obvious gameplan for India, defending 232 on a wicket of uncertain behaviour, where the ball tended not to really get up? Simple - open with Venkatesh Prasad and one of the slower bowlers - either Robin Singh or Saurav Ganguly. Get them to concentrate on an off stump line and on bowling well within themselves, with a field of two slips, gully, point, short cover (blocking the quick single) and mid off on the off side. Reserve Srinath for the second half of the innings, when the ball would be softer, and harder to hit. And introduce spin - Joshi, preferably, as the South Africans have not played him in a long while now - as early as over number five.

More - use Ganguly, whose much slower pace makes him next to impossible to hit, and Jadeja for the same reason - in brief three over spells right through. Brief spells, because that means that by the time batsmen have settled against them and are ready to take chances, they are off the firing line. A good five, six overs from each of them would mean that the four frontline bowlers and Robin Singh could also be rotated more effectively, and changed as and when circumstances demanded.

In the event, Srinath opened the bowling. Ball three was on off stump, leaving the bat, Bacher feathered the edge, and Karim dropped the simplest of catches behind the stumps. Karim is a competent keeper - but it must be remembered that unlike Mongia, he hasn't kept much to the Indian bowlers, and is besides on the wane as far as his personal abilities are concerned. South Africa, at the time, had not scored a single run, and a wicket at that stage would have induced doubt in the minds of the batsman to follow.

In the event, if Karim started the problem, then Srinath compounded it when he, against the dictates of logic, decided in his second over to go round the wicket to the left-handed Kirsten. Thus far, Kirsten has always in the early stages of his innings been in trouble against the ball slanting away from him, so what Srinath hoped to accomplish by the change in line is beyond me. In the event, Kirsten smashed him for two successive fours and then worked him off his pads for three more before Srinath realised his error, and Bacher made it worse by taking another four. And the danger of bowling Srinath at the beginning on this track was rather cruelly exposed.

Sachin did introduce spin in the fifth over, but it was Kumble who got the nod. In his first over, one ball kept low and went, straight as an arrow, towards middle stump till its progress was arrested by Bacher's pads. Why Dave Orchard turned that appeal down, we will never know. But in the event, Bacher (14 off 27 with one four) didn't survive, pushing tentatively at a Kumble flipper for Dravid to take a good reflex catch at silly point. SA 1/44.

Cronje, unlike Sachin, changes his thinking to suit the situation and here, he did not send in a pinch hitter - the risk of a batsman getting out while trying to accelerate the pace on this wicket being too high - and opted instead for Darryl Cullinan, the most in-form of the SA batsmen.

And Cullinan and Kirsten took the score along to 134, working the singles at every opportunity, running aggressively, and putting pressure on the fielders, before the next wicket fell.

The batting was good, yes. Most definitely so, with Cullinan especially being his usual elegant self. Meanwhile, the Indian fielding touched new lows. Joshi, brought into the attack after Kumble had bowled a lovely spell of 5 overs for seven runs, bowled with control and precision, flighting the ball, challenging the batsmen and making their lives rather difficult, only for the fielders to undo his good work. By not attacking the ball in the field, they gave away too many easy singles - and a bowler like Joshi likes to work at a batsman over a space of three, four balls, not bowl to a leftie one ball, then to a right-hander the next. Then, when he put pressure on the batsmen and they responded by trying to hit him out of the ground, Ganguly at long off first opted to stay on the line rather than come in to make a catch off a Cullinan mishit that was in the air for long enough for the fielder to position himself perfectly; then, two balls later, compounded that felony by dropping Kirsten when, again, Joshi induced the left-hander to mishit with a clever variation in line. Interestingly, while all that was going on, Robin Singh, one of the best fielders in the side, was patrolling square leg - where there was not one chance in 100 of the ball going given Joshi's line on off stump, the turn taking it further away.

In the event, Joshi against all odds kept tossing it up, inducing Cullinan (32 off 48 with two fours) to finally go down the track and Saba Karim gathered and pushed the stumps down. Not the cleanest of stumpings, but it got the job done and SA were 134/2.

Interestingly, SA throughout this phase was behind India on the run-rate. Thus, in the first 10 overs India was 43/0, SA 43/1; in 20 overs it was 75/0 India, 79/1 SA; in 25, it was 101/0 India, 104/1 SA. Given the wicket that SA lost, and keeping in mind those dropped catches, India looked to be in with a good chance even then, provided they at the least sharpened their act in the field.

But the misfields continued, so did the inexplicable bowling changes. Sachin Tendulkar obviously realised that slow bowlers were what would work best on this track - why then did he not use Jadeja and Ganguly, but prefer to bring himself on when, given that he is still nursing an injury to his rib cartilege, he could never bowl with the control he would have liked? All that this meant was that his three overs went for 17 runs, and SA went to 133/1 in 30 overs, as against India's 123/1 at a similar stage.

To my mind, the game slipped out of India's grasp at this stage. On this wicket, the best way to get wickets was to make the SA batsmen sweat for each run, and by piling on the pressure, induce the errors. Instead, each time either Kumble or Prasad bowled a good spell of two, three tight overs or Joshi bowled an economical over, the pressure was released at the other end by inexplicable bowling changes compounded by sloppy ground fielding.

Jacques Kallis came in ahead of Jonty Rhodes and rightly so - Kallis is a batsman in the classical mould, and no pinch-hitter. And right from the get-go, he kept finding the gaps, working the singles, and running admirably between wickets. Meanwhile, it was Gary Kirsten who, first against Kumble, then against Joshi, looked out of sorts. And it was Kirsten (82 off 117 with eight fours) who left, when Prasad, brought back into the attack, bowled the slower one, induced the mishit and Kumble at mid off held easily to reduce SA to 142/3.

Thus, after 35 overs, SA was 152/3, Rhodes the new man in - and India, remember, was 149/1 at the same stage. In other words, SA just three runs ahead, and two wickets more lost. The time, one would think, to attack the bustling Rhodes. And the best way to do that is to bring the fielders in a shade - Rhodes takes very quick singles, and ensuring that he didn't get too many of those was the best way of inducing errors. Instead, the fielders remained on the line, and Rhodes bustled away to good purpose, raising SA to 182/3 with his usual electric running and the odd innovative stroke, while Kallis provided the ideal foil.

Earlier, we made the point about how SA always practises its fielding for at least an hour before the start of each match. India, however, never does - and the flaw was never as apparent as when, time and again, Rhodes dared the fielders by taking impossible singles, and time and again the direct throws kept missing the same stumps that the SA fielders hit with unnerving accuracy. In this spell of five overs between 35 and 40, when SA upped its scoring rate to above India's for the first time in the match, I counted five occasions when a direct hit would have had Rhodes or his partner out by a mile - on each occasion, one more was added to the SA total. Oh well, if you are not prepared to work hard, then you can't complain when you don't get the rewards, right?

Academic though it was at this stage, Srinath produced a ball on middle stump, cutting away to leg, that defeated Rhodes' (22 off 24 with one four) flick to leg and rapped him on the pad. By any reckoning, that ball would have missed leg stump. Umpire Orchard thought otherwise, and up went the finger. Strike three for Orchard, and SA 200/4.

Cronje (21 off 25 with three fours) and Kallis (a superb 52 off 54 with three fours) saw SA home with five balls to spare, but not before one supreme bit of irony. In the 49th over, SA needed 4 runs to win when Tendulkar finally realised that a certain Ajaysinghji Jadeja could bowl a bit. And Jadeja rubbed in the earlier error by bowling so slow, and so controlled a line, that time and again the SA batsmen failed to hit him for the required runs, and managed just three scrambled singles in that over. The winning run did come off the first ball of the last over, but even as it was being hit, we were still asking ourselves why Jadeja - and a certain Saurav Ganguly - continue to be totally neglected when it comes to allocating bowling responsibilities. After all, Jadeja was flown in as an all-rounder - to bowl him for four overs in four games hardly justifies the tag. As for Ganguly, well, the myopia continues.

In the event, India lost again. And again, did so from a position when it could have won. The difference between the two sides? Simple - Cronje's captaincy versus Tendulkar's is the first; the SA team's total commitment versus the lackadaisical attitude of India's XI is the second; and the SA's fielding as opposed to the Indians misfielding is the third.

Not a good augury, that, going into the needle games on February 7 and 9, when India go against Zimbabwe knowing that it has to win two out of two to make it to the final. Sure, India has done that kind of escape act before, most notably in the Titan Cup in late 1996 when it came out of nowhere to pip Australia to that final berth. And on paper, India can do it again here - but then, cricket is not played on paper, but out there on the ground, where the team that puts its all into each game, as Zimbabwe does, has the edge over the team packed with talented performers all of whom appear to lack the collective will to make a match of it.

Meanwhile, hats off to South Africa. Dodgy pitch, good target, good bowling, rather uncertain light at times - and yet the home side kept its nerve and turned in another display of one hundred percent professionalism to take all six games in the league and go into the final with a clean record.

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