Jonty's heroics power SA to win in first ODI

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From the concertoes of Test match cricket, with its crescendos and diminuendos, to the pop music of one day cricket. And both teams, India and South Africa, in the event made the transition pretty well - the latter, of course, doing that bit better than the former, and walking off the winners by 39 runs.

Here's how it all went...

The South African innings

Hansie Cronje for once got the call right, and South Africa opted for first strike on a nice batting track at the Springbok Park, Bloemfontein.

South Africa had made some changes to its Test squad, opting to bring into the playing eleven Jonty Rhodes, Pat Symcox and Craig Mathews.

India, too, made some changes - Ajay Jadeja coming in for Vikram Rathore, Robin Singh coming in for Dodda Ganesh and Syed Saba Karim keeping wickets while Nayan Mongia rested his bruised thumb.

South Africa opened with Hudson and Kirsten. Srinath initially appeared in his Test match mode, striving for extreme pace and, in the process, giving away five wides in his very first over. Prasad, however, settled into a tight line and length straight off, and South Africa did not get off to the sort of flier it likes to.

Andrew Hudson was the first to go when he tried to pull the slower ball from Prasad to midwicket. The change of pace was deceptive, and the leading edge ballooned to Tendulkar at mid off. Hudson caught Tendulkar bowled Prasad 15 off 35 with one four, SA 36/1.

Lance Klusener came out as the pinch hitter and went well, thumping a six and two fours before setting off for an impossible second run and, when sent back, slipping and falling flat on his face while Prasad fired in the return to catch him out of his ground. Klusener run out 15 off 13, two fours, one six, SA 54/2.

From this point on, Kirsten and Darryl Cullinan consolidated the innings, taking singles at every opportunity, shrugging off the odd edges flying wide of the fielders and concentrating on the task of innings building. It was a disciplined performance and though SA took 23 overs to top the 100 mark and seemed to be going at a rather slow pace, the important thing was that the runs came steadily, and without any further loss of wickets.

Till, that is, Cullinan tried to club Kumble over the midwicket boundary for Ajay Jadeja, shielding his eyes against the sun, to take a very well judged catch on the fence. Cullinan caught Jadeja bowled Kumble 51 off 77 with two fours and a six, SA 165/3.

Almost immediately thereafter, Kirsten was deceived by the slower ball, drove on the up and Robin Singh claimed the catch with his usual competence. Kirsten caught R Singh bowled Prasad 73 off 99 balls with 5 fours, SA 168/4.

SA with two new batsmen at the crease in Hansie Cronje and Jonty Rhodes looked, heading into the slog overs, unlikely to go past the 235-240 mark on a very good batting wicket. If in the event they went way past that total, the credit was due, in its entirety, to some magnificient running by Jonty Rhodes. Time and again, he took two where there was, at best, a tight single - and it was not that the Indians fielded and throwed back badly, merely that Jonty stretched the envelope of what was possible by way of electric foot speed between wickets.

Hansie Cronje, too, shrugged off the poor form of his Test matches and backed Jonty up, responding to every call despite several very close shaves where a direct hit would have had one or the other player out of his ground. The great secret to running of the kind Rhodes displayed is that the partner should have implicit faith in his calling, and Cronje displayed just that quality, taking off unhesitatingly on even the chanciest calls, and in the event making it by miles.

And then, from the 46th over on, the batsmen went quietly berserk. With just four batsmen gone, they could afford to lose wickets in the search for quick runs, and so the two flung their bats at everything. Ungainly heaves alternated with clinical hits as the score gallopped along in the last four overs.

They say that the trick to gambling is to always go with a full wallet. If you have money and can afford to lose, then you more often than not will win on the wildest gambles. Go with a pittance, and you are broke at the first turn of the wheel. And that is what happened here - SA had the currency of wickets in hand, so they could chance their arm. On the day, they did just that, and with the ball coming nice and easy onto bat, they fired to such an extent that bowlers noted for their parsimony came off with expensive price tags as SA ended its innings on 270/4 in 50 overs.Jonty Rhodes 56 not out off 39 balls with five fours, Hansie Cronje 44 not out off 41 with two fours and a six.

For the Indians, everyone bowled reasonably well - it was just that on the day, SA just took the bit between its teeth and ran away with the game in the slog. Srinath (50 in 10 overs), Prasad (62 in 10 with one maiden and two wickets), Ankola (a tidy 45 from 10), Kumble (44 from his nine overs, with one wicket), Robin Singh (40 from 8) were all competent, while Jadeja was the real sufferer with 22 off his three overs.

One thing I did not understand, though, was why Sachin Tendulkar opted not to use Saurav Ganguly in the middle. At his gentle medium pace, Saurav could have squeezed in four, five economical overs when Kirsten and Cullinan were rebuilding the innings, or even later when Cronje and Rhodes were new to the wicket. This, in turn, would have meant that he could save a few of Kumble's overs for the finish. In the event, though, Ganguly remained on outfield patrol, and Kumble - easily the hardest of India's bowlers to collar, found one of his overs unused, while Prasad and Srinath were mauled after tidy first spells.

The Indians ground fielding, though, was up to par with Robin Singh, Ajay Jadeja and Azharuddin being the pivots around whom the rest performed. And Tendulkar did place his field well, to such good effect that runs came more in singles than in fours till the very end of the innings.

The Indian innings

They say the best of batsmen inspire bowlers to bowl out of their skins, and Shaun Pollock certainly produced an inspired delivery to send back Sachin Tendulkar for a duck to get the Indian innings off to a bad start. The ball was bowled from close to the wicket, pitching just short on middle and off stump. Any batsman in the world would have moved into the front foot defensive stroke to that one - Sachin did, only to find it deviate just enough to miss the outer edge and clip the off bail. Tendulkar bowled Pollock 0, India 1/14.

In came Javagal Srinath, in the role of pinch hitter. And rather than go full blast in the form of the baseball player - "pinch hitter" after all is a term borrowed from that sport - Srinath used his head to rotate strike with well placed singles, making even the normally lethargic Ganguly run like a hare, and interspersing with the odd big bit to come up with a competent 37 off 45 balls. More to the point, Srinath ensured, in company with the fluent Ganguly, that the Indian run rate in the initial 15 overs did not suffer from the early demise of Tendulkar. He finally fell mistiming a pull at Klusener, but left the scene having done more than was expected of him.Srinath caught Cullinan bowled Klusener 37 off 45 with four fours, India 87/2.

Ganguly, meanwhile, laid claim to the opener's slot. Driving with customary fluency on the off side, beating the field repeatedly with perfectly timed cover and off drives, surviving a difficult chance dropped by Jonty Rhodes at point and a superb first over by Allan Donald coming on as second change, the batsman indicated through vastly improved running between wickets that he was aware of his main flaw, and was working to rectify it. In the event, it took a glorious airborne catch by Rhodes at point to get rid of him. Ganguly caught Rhodes bowled Donald 40 off 64 with six fours, India 107/3.

Right through, India had kept comfortably ahead of the SA innings, reaching 126/3 at the halfway mark and, at that stage, looking good to win with Azhar, unusually circumspect by his standards but still cruising at a run a ball, and Dravid at the wicket. And then Dravid, who had not yet settled down and got his eye in, drove at a fuller length ball from Symcox to inner edge onto his boot and thence onto the stumps. Dravid bowled Symcox 8 off 22, India 129/4.

At that stage, India had just got to the 30th over. There is no denying the superlative qualities of Ajay Jadeja - but the man is just a week in SA, still unused to the conditions and, in any event, much better when he comes in towards the slog phase, with India having less than 10 overs to go. It would have made sense, at this stage, to either send out Salil Ankola to pinch hit, going for a few lusty strikes against the niggling length and line of Hansie Cronje and the tight off spin of Pat Symcox, or Kumble or Saba Karim to rotate strike with singles, and let Azharuddin have his head.

In the event, Jadeja came in and, given the number of overs remaining, tried to defend with a view to getting his eye in. Before he could do so, Cronje produced a lovely ball on his off stump, leaving the bat just enough to take the edge. Jadeja caught Richardson bowled Cronje 1 off 8, India 129/5.

Robin Singh, that other Johnny Come Lately in South Africa, was equally at sea and, before he could get set, decided to try the sort of stroke that makes more sense in over number 49. Drawing way away from the stumps, he aimed a slash at Symcox, the ball hurried through with the arm and did his stumps no good. R Singh bowled Symcox 0 in 11, India 136/6.

Saba Karim came in, and from ball one, used his feet sweetly to Symcox, driving on both sides of the wicket, placing intelligently and calling and running with a precision that belied the fact that he was making his debut. And with Azhar his normally fluent self, stroking comfortably on either side of the wicket, India looked in command despite the loss of those wickets.

Klusener came on to bowl. And it often happens that when you have, in course of a long season, established an ascendancy over a particular bowler, you tend to relax against him. Azhar obviously did just that. Klusener, for his part, bowled the first ball on a full length, Azhar aimed a lazy drive at it for the ball to sneak under his bat and break the off stump in two. Azharuddin bowled Klusener 52 off 59 with two fours and a six, India 179/7.

Salil Ankola should have realised, from watching the SA effort, that huge totals are not got through mindless slogs but intelligent placing and running. And with Karim cruising at the other end, looking untroubled against all bowlers, all Ankola had to do was hang in there and rotate strike, waiting for the lo0se ball to hit. In the event, he aimed an ungainly hoik, missed, did it again, missed again. Only, the second time, the ball didn't miss. Ankola bowled Klusener 3 off 9, India 183/8.

Anil Kumble did the best he could, getting good singles and ensuring that Karim got most of the strike. Around this time, Karim played the shot of the match, for me - drawing away from his stumps, he went down on his knee, picked Cronje from middle stump and hit clean, flat and hard over cover for a six. And then Kumble went, undoing all his hard work with a head in the air drive that gave Richardson another victim behind the stumps. Kumble caught Richardson bowled Klusener 7 of 15, India 9/211.

From there on, there was nothing Karim - who, on his debut, batted with a competence and flair that could see Mongia sitting out on the bench for a bit longer - could do but go for broke. He did just that, and finally misjudged as he drew away to drive a ball on his off stump. He missed, the ball hit, classic fast bowler's dismissal and India were all out for 231 in 47.4 overs, giving SA the win by 39 runs. Karim bowled Klusener 55 of 48 with three fours and one six.

One little point bears noting. At the 44 over mark, India were 200, SA 204. The difference? India had lost eight wickets, SA just four. And that made the difference, really - the SA total came via the classic one day formula of consolidating, saving wickets and going for glory in the end overs, while India discovered when it got to the crunch that it didn't have enough warm bodies left in the pavilion to make a match of it. The fielding was competent, though Cullinan did grass a sitter in the slips off the edge of Ganguly's bat. But one man stood out - Jonty Rhodes, as if to underline his value to the side and the unwisdom of having dropped him from the team during the Castle Lager Test series earlier, was electric, bringing off the sort of stops that frustrate batsmen and induce errors and easily saving a good 20, 25 runs in the field.

All told, a competent performance all round by SA. As for India, it came away with the knowledge that Ganguly at the top, and Karim in the middle, were two very key figures in their lineup. The unwisdom of not playing Sunil Joshi to lend variety to the attack - with Srinath, Prasad, Ankola, Singh and Jadeja, that made five bowlers between the fast to the medium range - has perhaps dawned on the think tank. Be interesting, then, to see how they approach their next game.

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