NEWS
STAT SHEET
DIARY
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
PEOPLE
DEAR REDIFF

Where do you reside? USA UK UAE Singapore Hong kong Australia Canada North America South America Europe Africa Bahrain Kuwait Qatar Philippines Indonesia Asia New Zealand

Atapattu's ton blunts India's thrust

Prem Panicker

You know who the loneliest person in the world has to be?

You guessed it -- it's got to be a cricket captain who wins the toss in the first Test match of a series, inserts the opposition, and walks back at the end of a long hard day, with his eye on a scoreboard that reads 280/4.

You are never more alone. Never more isolated. Never are you more conscious of a million critical -- even accusing -- eyes on you.

In fact, as early as the afternoon session, ESPN commentators of the order of Mark Nicholas (captain of Hampshire for 12 long years), Geoffrey Boycott and Sunil Gavaskar (who rarely if ever has a negative word to say about Tendulkar's captaincy) were condemning the decision to field first on winning the toss.

To disagree with such worthies might sound presumptuous in me -- but frankly, I do disagree. I think Tendulkar got it right on two important counts. The first lies in going in with five bowlers (I disagree with his choices, but more of that later). To win Tests, you need bowlers, and it is heartening for once to see an attitude in the Indian camp of going out there looking to win, instead of relying on an overlong batting lineup to force a draw.

And the second lies in bowling first. Every indication is that this track, which on day one had a nice inviting cover of light green grass, will ease off by late afternoon tomorrow, making batting easier on the third day, before the cracks begin to widen and it takes spin. So if you were looking to try and bowl a side out, you had to risk the insertion, rather than bat first and then have the Lankans going in to bat on a considerably easier wicket.

Having said that, I think Tendulkar got it horribly wrong on two counts. The first lies in his choice of Abey Kuruvilla over Venkatesh Prasad. Kuruvilla has done wonderfully well in the absence of Srinath, but his closest friend would admit freely that he is a line and length bowler who, unless the track is very, very helpful, does not possess enough variations to trouble a good batsman. Prasad, however, is the ideal support bowler for Srinath, mixing his leg cutters, the slower ball and the inswinger to good effect to keep the batsman guessing. His omission from this lineup was a blunder, and I for one would dearly love to know what reasons Tendulkar and coach Gaikwad put forward for this.

The second mistake lay in pairing Kuruvilla as Srinath's new ball partner. Debashish Mohanty is considerably quicker than Abey, and as the former showed when he finally got the ball (then 15 overs old), he could swing it both ways besides moving it off the seam. In fact, he bowled several testing overs to both Jayasuriya and Atapattu, but by then the batsmen had got reasonably set and negotiated him with a lot more ease than would have been possible earlier in the innings.

In the event, Srinath in his first spell bowled at about a fraction under full pace, concentrating on a fuller length and movement both ways off the seam. And time and again, had both Jayasuriya and Atapattu in trouble, more so when he slipped in the occasional ball at full pace. But as happens at times, inner edges fell short of the fielders or, as happened twice with Jayasuriya, flashed dangerously past the stumps. And on other occasions, the ball did everything it was supposed to -- turn the batsman inside out, beat him for pace, leave the bat late -- but just failed to find the edge.

Both batsmen, against a more potent attack than they faced earlier this year, were rather more circumspect, looking to keep their wickets intact. And succeeded to such an extent that lunch saw them going in at 76/0, India in the two hours till then having tried out all five regular bowlers, plus Saurav Ganguly for two very good overs.

Post lunch, Srinath produced probably the fieriest burst of bowling I've seen from him. Coming round the wicket, he first rocked Sanath Jayasuriya with a superb breakback that thudded into his gut, then had him scrambling to dig out a yorker, and then produced a superb delivery that was heading straight and fast for off stump, pitching on a length, kicking up and darting away off the seam to take the outer edge to the left of second slip. Azhar looked to have the catch covered, but Chauhan, at third slip, moved fast and took a good catch poaching on Azhar's territory. (Jayasuriya caught Chauhan bowled Srinath 53 off 109 deliveries with five fours, wicket falling at 98).

Mahanama came in and found a furious Srinath charging in. A perfectly aimed bouncer had him weaving hurriedly out of the way, a breakback rammed into the batsman's groin, and a perfect awayswinger turned him inside out and had the bowler grimacing in agony as the ball narrowly beat the edge.

But again, the breaks appeared to go against the Indians, and a bad spell of fielding further added to their woes. First up, Atapattu and Mahanama -- whose calling and running between wickets is surprisingly shoddy -- got involved in a mixup that saw the former a few yards out of his crease. Mongia, running rapidly round to backward square, picked up the attempted glance and rifled the throw to the bowler, Kumble, who in his desperate hurry to see the back of Atapattu, grabbed at the ball, saw it pop out of his hands, and broke the wicket with nothing in his hand but air.

At that point, Atapattu was still short of his fifty. A short while later, he got to that landmark -- and immediately thereafter, Chauhan tossed one up, the batsman came down the track, the ball kept low and beat the drive, and Mongia with all the time in the world not only missed a stumping, but added to the injury by letting the ball through for four byes.

Mongia again was the culprit an over later when Mahanama slashed at Chauhan, got the edge, and the ball popped into and out of Mongia's gloves -- another clear chance going down.

When reviewing Tendulkar's decision to insert Sri Lanka, this is what, I would suggest, needs to be kept in mind -- the captain can't be blamed if a batsman is let off well short of his fifty, and goes on to make a century. And another batsman, then just into double figures, adds another thirty to his score and figures in a 100-run second wicket partnership for the second wicket.

In the event, the wicket that came was against the run of play. Kumble, who thanks to his pace of delivery is pretty much un-sweepable, has met his master in Mahanama. The right hander plays the shot very early, picks up the line brilliantly and sweeps with conviction. Here, though, after pulling off three such shots, he played that one sweep too many and got the ball on the front pad. Again, I noticed some of the ESPN commentators speculating that the leg was stretched well forward -- but when seeing that dismissal, I think what needs keeping in mind is the fact that the ball was dead straight, on middle stump, and hitting the batsman below the roll of the pad. The rule is, if the ball hits you in line with the stumps, you are out. And here, the ball was heading for middle stump with a sure inevitability that made umpire Venkat's task that much easier. (Mahanama lbw Kumble 42 off 115 with six fours, the wicket falling at 202)

Marvan Atapattu duly completed his century. And for the young opener fighting to cement his place in the Test side (remember that he failed to get into double figures in his first six Test innings), this will come as an enormous confidence booster. Aravinda D'Silva, meanwhile, looked in incredible touch. His greatest asset is not his array of strokes, which admittedly is as comprehensive as you can get, but the fact that his judging of line and length is sure and quick, which means he has all the time in the world to select and play his shots.

But Aravinda is his own worst enemy. In this kind of mood, his over-confidence betrays him into taking needless risks, and that is what he did to the first ball of Abey Kuruvilla's first over with the second new ball. Not waiting to figure what pace the new ball was coming off the track at, Aravinda rocked into a cut to a straight ball outside off, and ended up dragging it back onto his wicket. (Aravinda D'Silva bowled Kuruvilla 33 off 40 deliveries with four fours, fall of wicket 254/3).

In the over immediately following that, Srinath struck again. This time, it was the breakback again, bowled at top pace, that proved the batsman's undoing. Though the batsman had a hundred under his belt, Srinath's extra pace was pushing Atapattu onto the back foot and, in this instance, the quicker ball cut back sharply to hit the back pad, plump in line with off and middle. (Atapattu lbw Srinath 108 off 244 balls with 14 fours, fall of wicket 254/4).

That should have been 254/5, with Srinath doing to Tillekeratne what he had earlier done to Jayasuriya. Bowling to a field of four slips, a gully, a silly point and a short square leg (when last did you see an Indian quick bowl to a field that aggressive?), Srinath came round the wicket, went wide of the crease and angled one in to Tillekeratne. The ball kicked and seamed away from a length, the batsman could only poke at it and watch as it flew off the shoulder of the bat -- only, it flew too high for any of the four slips to drag it down.

A moral victory to the bowler, certainly, but the last time I checked the scoreboard, there was no slot to record 'moral victories'. Tillekeratne (not out 9 off 18 balls with one four) and Ranatunga (14 off 25 balls with one four), thus saw out the day, taking Sri Lanka home on a strong 280/4.

For the Indians, the best bowler was obviously Srinath, with figures of 17-2-66-2. Kuruvilla bowled tidily, but without much penetration, and must have felt rather grateful to Aravinda for the latter's largesse in giving him a wicket off an undeserving ball (13-3-45-1), while Mohanty bowled well but went wicketless to return 16-1-52-0.

Chauhan was surprisingly good, bowling very steadily and with penetration and having the mortification of seeing Mongia let both Atapattu and Mahanama off against his bowling (16-2-34-0). And Saurav Ganguly, who had a spell of two overs, two maidens, before lunch (the last ball before lunch was pitched on off, drew Atapattu forward, and seamed away just missing the edge and drawing a nod of appreciation from the batsman) must have wondered why he was never given the ball in the post lunch session. Rather surprising treatment, frankly, because Ganguly is one guy who seems to have the knack of breaking through obdurate partnerships, and certainly deserved more of the ball than he ended up getting.

And now for the big one -- Anil Kumble. Given that this is his comeback, it was obviously a big question how he was going to bowl. The short, pointed answer is -- as usual. When he first got the ball, Kumble bowled slower than usual, tossed it up more and gave the ball enough of a tweak to give me the impression that he had been seriously working on his bowling during the layoff. However, after lunch, he reverted to his old norm, sending down a stream of topspinners with the occasional googly by way of variety, and almost inevitably drifting one or two balls down the leg side, giving the batsmen the room to work him for runs on the less tenanted leg side. His figures read 26-7-71-1, and about a year ago, on a wicket with so much bounce, I would have backed him to have taken out another couple of wickets, at the very least.

A word about Tendulkar's captaincy needs adding -- whatever else one faults, one cannot but grant his aggressive instincts on the day. Srinath never had to bowl with less than four slips in place, Mohanty and Kuruvilla got three backed up by a bat-pad fielder, and the spinners had two, often three, close to the bat.

In attacking, Tendulkar was forced to leave the legside unpopulated (for the most part, there were just two fielders on leg, one of them behind the wicket). It was up to the bowlers to realise that the off or just outside off was the line to bowl to a packed offside field -- but almost all of them, with the honourable exception of Srinath, kept gifting the odd delivery to leg which the batsmen put away with ease. When that happens, it lifts the pressure off the batsmen, puts runs on the board -- neither of which India needed. Maybe it is time Gaikwad talked to his bowlers about the need to bowl to their fields?

The rotation of bowlers was fair enough too, for the most part -- except that I reckon it was pretty silly not to have given Ganguly a single over barring the two he bowled before lunch.

The Indian fielding was pretty decent -- Kumble's missed run outs and a rather lackadaisical effort behind the stumps by Mongia being the exceptions. But to my mind, the man of the day was Navjot Singh Sidhu. Till now, he has never really bothered to put up any kind of effort in the field -- so much so that more often that not, he would spend most of the time sitting in the pavilion while the twelfth man did duty out in the middle. Today, though, he was outstanding. Fielding mostly at cover or mid on, he flung himself about, chased balls to the boundary, brought off a spectacular sliding stop and, by a conservative reckoning, saved a good 25, 30 runs in the field.

But more than the runs saved, it was the sight of him diving around, then beaming with pleasure at every stop made and run saved (on one occasion, his stop at cover to a full blooded drive by Mahanama was so spectacular that Mongia came running up from behind the wickets to pat him on the back) that it lifted the rest of the side and ensured that though the team went wicketless for long periods, spirits didn't drop. A superb effort, and Sidhu -- who has, deservedly in my opinion, taken flak in the past for not trying on the field -- deserved, on the day, to be cheered off the field after a job well done.

So what of tomorrow?

The general feeling seems to be that the Lankans will go on and on. Frankly, I don't see that happening. Given a bit of commitment in the field and a few less fumbled chances -- given too that Tendulkar gets it right and pairs Mohanty with Srinath first thing in the morning -- the chances are good for the fielding side to break through, and restrict the tourists to around the 350 mark.

Anything more, and the loneliness of Sachin Tendulkar will intensify. As will the catcalls that now greet his decision to insert the opposition after having won the toss.