Sidhu, ten and a half hours and counting...

Prem Panicker

Tell you what, if say a fortnight ago someone had ventured to suggest that the Indian side would bat out six sessions of play, face 154 overs of Caribbean pace and lose a mere three wickets at the end of all that time and effort while putting 367 runs on the board, his auditors would have been on the phone to the lunatic asylum before you could say Navjot Singh Sidhu.

But that is precisely what India did here at the Queen's Park Oval, to bat themselves into a commanding position at the end of day three of the second Cable and Wireless Test at Port of Spain, Trinidad. At the end of day three, India were 367 for three, 71 ahead of the West Indies first innings total with seven wickets in hand and two full days, 180 overs, of play remaining.

For me, the enduring memory of the day came right at the very end. With Sidhu batting 194, Hooper to bowl the last ball of the day, Walsh brought his long off fielder in, inviting Sidhu to have a go and obviously hoping that the tired batsman would either miscue, or miss altogether, and lose his wicket.

Sidhu has worked very, very hard for his runs here, and could have been forgiven for declining the challenge. But off he goes after Hooper, carts it up and over wide midwicket, gets only two for it before the fielder at long on races round to cut it off.

And as he begins the weary, but enormously satisfying, walk back to the pavilion at the end of it all, Lara joins him with a quip on his lips. Sidhu - Sherry to his pals - responds with something that has Lara grinning hugely in appreciation. And the two stroll off the field, chatting happily.

What a change from the scene in South Africa just a month ago. A scene characterised by mutual antagonism and, despite all the public pronouncements of goodwill, so much of embittered undercurrents.

I'd tend to applaud this style of play - hard and unforgiving out there in the middle, all smiles and laughter the minute the stumps are drawn. It's a sport we are indulging in, after all - not war. And when played in the right spirit, sport - even of the attritive type witnessed today - can be huge fun.

Back to the game, and India resumed on 171 for one with Rahul Dravid on 57 and Navjot Sidhu on 102. The weather was warm and sunny, no sign of the clouds that kept producing those pesky drizzles on day one. The pitch, meanwhile, showed the odd crack, the dull, discoloured spots signalling the bowler's footmarks. The kind of appearance that signals uncertain bounce, slow pace, and lots of turn.

Curtley Ambrose appears, in this game, to have made a habit of picking up a wicket off the second ball of an innings, or a day. Yesterday, it was Laxman who got out off the second ball of the Indian innings. And this morning, it was Dravid's turn. Ball two of the first over was full length, it scooted through at just above bootlace height after pitching and before Dravid (57 off 182 with four fours) could bring his bat down, it had gone through to disrupt the stumps. India 171/2.

That brought Sachin Tendulkar to the wicket - riding a run of bad form that began in the third Test against RSA at Johannesburg, and continued through the Jamaica Test. Actually, that streak of poor form is just four innings old - but there is such enormous expectations of Sachin Tendulkar that two consequtive failures suffice to trigger off arguments about whether or no he deserves his ranking as one of the best in the world, whether or no captaincy is affecting his batting, whether or no... heck, you get the point.

This is not the kind of wicket that sees a Tendulkar-type batsman at his best. With the ball not coming on, his type of strokeplay, which depends a lot on playing on the up through the V, is ruled right out. Another strong area for Sachin is the arc between point and slips, when he goes back and hammers balls outside off and short - but again, uneven bounce means that you are apt to play that shot a good couple of feet above where the ball is actually going through low.

In the event, his innings almost didn't take off. The second ball he faced was bang on off and middle. Sachin took a long step forward and presented his pad to it - a stupid ploy, really, on a wicket where the ball is apt to keep low. He was struck on the pad, the appeal was made, and Steve Randell turned it down.

99 out of 100 umpires would probably have given the decision on that one. And it is worth noting here that Randall, who turned down three certain LBW appeals when the Indians were in the field, is at the least consistent in his decision-making.

But it also begs the question - how exactly does Randall define LBW? Worth asking, because if the rulebook is to be the criterion, this makes four certs that Randall managed to find some doubt in.

Back to Tendulkar. In his previous two Tests, he seemed to have developed a little shuffle in the crease, and a habit of poking his bat out at the ball instead of getting in line and waiting for it to come on to him. Here, there was a total change. The guard was leg stump but he consistently stood a couple of inches outside. The front foot came right out and across the stumps the minute the ball was bowled, and the bat was right next to front pad. The result, when he did inner edge, the ball went on to pad and not onto the stumps, as had happened in the recent past.

Tendulkar concentrated on little pushes behind point or square for singles, getting his runs with uncharacteristic slowness. And Sidhu, for his part, was considerably more sedate than yesterday (as evidence the 94 runs he scored in three sessions today, as against the 102 he scored yesterday in just two sessions).

But if all that looks like tedious cricket, then two factors prompt a rethink. The first was the wicket, with its uneven bounce that had already claimed Dravid first up. And the second was the Windies bowling. Yesterday, they were more aggressive and, as a result, every over produced its quota of balls outside the line of the stumps or of driveable length. Today, however, all four Windies quicks bowled to a plan - using the width of the crease to superb effect, angling the ball in to the off and middle stumps from wide of off stump and keeping a very full length, which meant that the batsmen had only one option, and that was to play straight in the V. Any attempt to work across the line, and the risk of LBW or bowled was too high to make it worth taking. And when the batsman's strokeplaying line is restricted thus, three strategically placed fielders are enough to choke the flow of runs. Brilliant defensive bowling, and one suspects the hand of their bowling coach Malcolm Marshall behind it.

Under the circumstances, both Sidhu and Tendulkar got their runs through grim, painstaking accumulation rather than outright aggression. And each batsman had his share of edges that didn't go to the fielders, of deliveries outside off that beat the bat, and similar other close shaves - most of them brought about, one suspects, by the uncertainity in their minds as to whether the next ball would reach for the sky or try to burrow a tunnel in the pitch. Under the circumstances, both Tendulkar and Sidhu took to holding their bat at half mast, ready either to jab down on the one keeping low, or raise up to defend to the one climbing into their chests.

Under these conditions, it was a commendable effort on the part of the two batsmen to grit out the 174 runs they added for the third wicket.

It's a funny thing about Tendulkar - so often, when he is not at his best, he survives at the wicket. But when his timing is on and he is looking good, is precisely when the fielding side produces a superb effort to get rid of him - either the bowler comes up with a beauty, or some fielder takes a blinder of a catch. Interestingly, Star Sports is running this Best Catches contest for the season, and of the six catches that have made the shortlist, three were taken to get rid of Sachin - one by Gary Kirsten, one by Adam Bacher, one by Jonty Rhodes.

The trend continued here as well. Having worked out his timing and touch, and got his feet moving well, Sachin Tendulkar came back after tea looking ominous. And the first sign that he is in good touch is when he plays the drives, of either front foot or back, on the up to the fast bowlers. He did try a couple of times earlier in the day, with not particularly remarkable results. But after tea, when Ambrose came back on, he greeted him with a superb drive off the back foot that left mid off standing, then followed it up with an identical shot this time through mid on.

By then, India had gone past the West Indies first innings score, so it seemed as if Sachin Tendulkar had regained his touch at the best possible moment. Next over, a yorker length ball was firmly pushed straight back past the bowler, Sachin ran with the stroke and Courtney Walsh, not exactly the quickest mover in the field in international cricket, raced across from mid off, bent low, picked the ball up and threw down the stumps with a dazzling fluency that would have drawn plaudits from Jonty Rhodes. That ended Tendulkar's (88 off 233 with nine fours) - not one he would class among his best, but an innings that should have got him back into a more normal frame of mind with regards to his batting form. India 345/3.

Saurav Ganguly, unusually tentative, and Navjot Singh Sidhu, measured and unhurried, then played out time, to put India well ahead at 367/3.

Sidhu deserved the standing ovation he got as he walked off, and then some. The sheer task of concentrating for such a long period - and on a wicket where the ball can alternate between keeping low and kicking up, you have to concentrate even harder - can be exhausting. More so for a player who hasn't played at this level for a year and a bit now, and is just making a comeback. But Sidhu gritted it out, played shots whenever the bowling allowed and remained focussed on the job of remaining at the wicket for a long period of time - something no Indian opener, and there have been 12 of them tried this season, has managed to do in a year and more now.

As for the bowling, Walsh and his three pace partners did all they could under the circumstances, without ever once flagging. It is not often that an Ambrose is called on to bowl 32 overs in an as yet unfinished innings. Walsh bowled 31, Rose 30, Dillon 27 - an indication of how well the Windies captain marshalled his resources and distributed the workload. And by squeezing 34 overs of part-time off spin from Hooper and Chanderpaul, Walsh also reduced a bit of the burden on his main bowlers and gave them rest periods before bringing them back to the crease.

Having said that, I wonder if Walsh is regretting going with Dillon, and not the spinner Rawl Lewis, on this track. Even Hooper and Chanderpaul got turn - at times, prodigious turn - today. A genuine spin bowler would have been able to utilise the conditions much better. In the event, four quick bowlers coming in one after the other on a track like this makes the batsman's life easier, as he is essentially playing the same kind of bowling, with only the purveyor's identity changing with the passing hours.

One other thing needs mentioning - what happens when a captain is batting, and crucial decisions regarding the next man in has to be made? Do the vice captain and the manager just go ahead and make them, or do they sit back and say, hey, the skipper decided the batting order, he hasn't said different so let's stick with it?

Question begs the asking because I would have thought Azharuddin would have been the ideal man to come in at the fall of Tendulkar's wicket. The bowlers by then were absolutely tired, the fielders were weary, and someone like Azhar would have been absolute murder at a time like that. Again, Azhar's wristy play and ability to find gaps in the field would have ensured that the last 18 overs, bowled after Sachin's departure, would have yielded far more than the 25 odd runs that actually accrued. More so as the Windies, way behind the over rate, were forced to bowl part-timers like Hooper and Chanderpaul at the end for a good few of the remaining overs.

But it was Ganguly who walked out, and on a wicket that does not permit him freedom for his off and square driving, looked totally ill at ease. At the end, he was unbeaten on three runs off 48 deliveries, while Sidhu walked back with 196 against his name, made off 471 deliveries.

So there we have it, India 74 ahead going into the fourth morning, and the next question centering on when the declaration will come. The odds should be on lunch time for the closure, which gives the Indians all of two sessions tomorrow, and three sessions the day after, to try and spin the Windies batsmen out.

For this, though, the batting side will need quick runs tomorrow morning - say 90, 100 of them before lunch. On the plus side, they have the wickets in hand to get them with, and can afford to throw away a few in the process of trying the bit hits. On the minus side, Walsh knows that he doesn't have to worry about over rates and so, shrewd captain that he is, it is a safe bet that he will have his four quicks on throughout the morning, which means India will get at best 24, 25 overs before lunch. And when guys like Ambrose and Walsh bowl a restrictive line on a wicket like this, you don't exactly hit them around the park with a song on your lips. More so when the third new ball (interestingly, when was the last time an Indian innings lasted through two balls and into the third?) is due just six overs after start of play tomorrow.

So that is the focus of interest when play resumes tomorrow - a battle between Windies bowlers keen to make the Indians bat as long as possible before declaring, and an Indian lineup on the lookout for rapid runs.

A tangential word in passing: when doing the live commentary of today's play, I was amazed at the number of people in the chat room who criticised the slow rate of scoring. A decade ago, if a team - any team - had gone through an entire day on a wicket like this and against bowling of this calibre, losing only two wickets and gaining a 74 run lead, they would have have drawn raves for their performance.

Today, the adjective that characterises the same kind of gritty effort is "boring". Goes to show you what a surfeit of one-day cricket will do - kill one's appreciation of the classical lines on which a Test match on a dodgy track is played, is what.