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

Sidhu does it again

The story of the day's play is succintly told. 90 overs were bowled. 202 runs were scored. Four wickets were lost. And as a contest, the first Test between India and Sri Lanka was as good as buried.

The onfield happenings, however, provide much grist for long range thought. Before examining those issues, though, a brief elaboration on the course of the play:

India resumed with Messers Mongia and Sidhu, resuming on 91 for no loss. And with the medium pacers operating in the morning, both batsmen went on the attack, playing strokes freely and getting runs at around the 3.5 per over mark -- which, in fact, was just what the doctor ordered for the home side.

The doctor's name, though, was not Arjuna Ranatunga -- and the Sri Lankan captain's prescription was radically different. Ranatunga's gameplan for the day could be described as 'shut the lid tight, and sit on the damn thing all day'.

Thus, both Vaas and Sajeewa D'Silva were taken out of the attack inside the first hour, and twin spin in the form of Muthiah Muralitharan and Kumara Dharmasena introduced. Mongia for his part gave sufficient indication that the Indian think tank had asked for a shade more urgency than was shown yesterday. In attempting to achieve it, however, he went down on his knee to essay a wild heave at Murali, the turn beat the flailing bat and crashed into off stump, and the keeper-batsman's vigil ended with India's score at 120.

In came Rahul Dravid, looking a lot more positive than is his habit. But then, when he came in there really was no need for obdurate, anchor-style batting -- 120/1 is as good a time for number three to walk in as any, it was already evident that the Lankan captain had given up all ambitions of trying to bowl the Indians out, so he could afford to stroke freely.

He tried. So did Sidhu. Prior to lunch, that is.

The morning session saw 79 runs coming off 30 overs. Which was not exactly electric, but the threat of wickets tumbling had been seen off. The platform was in place. 169 runs on the board with just the makeshift opener gone meant that India, 200 below the Sri Lankan total with its batting essentially intact, had 60 overs left to play in the day and even going at 3.5 an over, that is a further 210 runs on your board. Which, added to what you have, is 379 runs going to bed on day three, with the option, first thing on day four, of really going after the bowling and attempting to put enough on the board, say by the end of the first hour of play post-lunch, to declare and let Srinath and company loose on the Lankan batting.

What was the worst that could happen? The Lankans might bat well, and get runs. So? No way could they, from that point, wipe out the deficit, then put 200, 250 on the board and still have time to bowl the Indians out, so for India, it was essentially a no-lose situation.

In the event, what the spectators got was the dullest day of Test cricket in recent memory. In fact, the only parallel in my mind was when West Indies captain, in a similar situation during India's March 1997 tour of the West Indies, went defensive, first, and then negative.

Thus, shortly after lunch, the ball was tossed to Sanath Jayasuriya. The field was readjusted, to read six (and, at times, seven) on the on, the other two or three on the off. And the bowler kept bowling ball after ball, over after over, a foot and a half outside leg stump.

Not content with that, Ranatunga had his star off spinner, Muralitharan, actually go round the wicket, and bowl leg breaks, pitching way outside leg and gently turning into the right hander.

Against this ploy, Sidhu opted to push his pad at everything. Dravid used his feet a couple of times, narrowed the angle and slammed the ball through mid on and midwicket. But an attempt to kneel and pull over the leg side cordon saw him top edging Jayasuriya to Dharmasena at square leg. A wicket that owed to frustration, and an attempt to do something about a negative, sleep-inducing line of attack. India 214/2 at that stage.

Sachin Tendulkar joined Sidhu, and then on, it was negative bowling and pad-pushing from both ends, Tendulkar like Sidhu preferring to take anything outside line of the stumps on his pad. On the occasions when he did try to glide it down to leg, there was fine leg brought up inside the circle to stop the run and add to the frustration.

Sidhu has this habit of crowning his comeback with a century, and he did it for the third time this year with another ton against the Lankans. If you recall, his first comeback for the year was against the West Indies, and he got a double hundred. Then he opted out through injury, which in turn provoked the management to drop him. Back he came against Lanka in Lanka, and another century marked his return. And then out he went again, through injury. And now he is back, as is the inevitable three figure comeback.

It was a patient knock, this. In fact, I don't know who was more patient, Sidhu or the spectators. Through the day, the batsman kept pushing his pad at everything, only occasionally remembering the bat he held in his hands and which, for the most part of the innings was tucked behind the front pad, and dancing down to slam one or the other spinner to the fence and, on two occasions, over it. The spectators, for their part, patiently waited for the odd hit from the hometown hero, which they then cheered to the echo.

I wonder if a certain incident had anything to do with Sidhu's eventual demise? On several occasions, Sachin would work the ball into the gaps and call for the run, and Sidhu would remain rooted to the crease. Finally, a visibly annoyed Sachin walked up at the end of one over and had a chat with Sidhu, after which the latter showed more urgency in his running. Till he pushed one just to the left of Aravinda at square leg, took off for a run that never did exist -- it was, after all, the non-striker's call -- was rightly sent back, and failed to beat the throw to the crease. India 259/3.

That brought Azhar and Sachin together. And Jayasuriya and Muralitharan went a bit wider of leg stump, with a ball that was threatening to rival Methusaleh in terms of longevity. I mean, the new ball was taken only about 20 minutes before close of play, and at that point, the previous ball had seen 138 overs worth of duty -- 58 overs above the 80-over mark at which the second new ball became due.

Azhar is difficult to tie down simply because he doesn't bother with the rules. Jayasuriya bowling two feet down leg? No problem, he would back three feet to leg, himself, convert it to an offside line and hammer through point or nudge to third man. Or push dead at his feet and set off for a single.

So Sachin, too, decided to do something more positive than display the name of his pad-manufacturer. Rocking on to his back foot, he attempted to swipe Jayasuriya over the leg side cordon, found the ball gently turning into him, turned the attempted pull into an ungainly scoop, and Dharmasena didn't need to break a sweat to hold at square leg. India 274/4, and with Ganguly and Azhar relatively untroubled (I'll elaborate on the 'relatively' a bit later), India got through to 293 at close without further loss.

Given that only 180 overs remain to be bowled in this Test match, a result seems unlikely. There are still six Indian first innings wickets to go, then 10 Lankan wickets and the whole Indian second innings to follow. And though there are signs of the wicket taking turn, I for one will be surprised if it suddenly transforms into one of those tracks that batsmen dream about after a heavy dinner and wake up, screaming.

So there are really no options to discuss, right? Right. So, just for fun, suspend disbelief for a moment, and join me in speculating how a Pataudi, for instance, or an Ian Chappell -- or someone of like mind, who believed in making things happen rather than waiting for it to happen -- would have handled this situation.

In my dreams, I would see India declare at this score and throw a challenge to the Lankans. The challenge would run thus: "Okay, blokes, you talked big about playing 'bright, positive cricket'. I didn't see much of it when you were bowling. So how about strutting your stuff with the bat now? You are leading by around 70-odd already, let's see your batsmen take on Srinath and Kuruvilla and Mohanty on a wearing wicket, add runs in a jiffy, put up a challenging total and declare, then go after us. I mean, you have the world's best batsman in Jayasuriya and the number two in Aravinda, plus a first innings centurion in Atapattu, not to mention Mahanama and Tillekeratne from the top twenty, so now let's see you walk that talk!"

What does that do? It creates a situation where the Sri Lankans are forced to accept the challenge. Maybe with the bat, they could do well enough, slam 200, 250 runs in about 70, 80 overs and declare -- though even that is iffy against a rather more potent bowling attack than the one they last faced in India colours. But granting they do it, they still have to let their bowlers have a go at the Indian batsmen. Ranatunga, in the Indian first innings, indicated, when he set just a couple of slips in the very first over of the innings, that he doesn't think highly of the chances of his bowlers getting the Indian batting on the run. Can he, second time round, be more positive?

If yes, does the Lankan bowling have enough teeth to break through?

If they don't -- which, every indication shows, is the case -- then the Indians, with two Tests yet to play, have won a huge psychological advantage, by forcing the touring side to admit that they don't have a hope in hell of ever winning a Test. Because you can't win unless you bowl a side out twice, right?

The point here is, you have a side that has established mental superiority over you in the one day game. Turn the tables on them in the longer version, and you get some of your own back in a soul-stirring fashion. Mind games. You got to play them all the time.

What does sitting on your bat, pushing your pad at everything, get you? Dirty pads, a clean bat, and universal opprobrium, is all. All of which is why I had that dream.

But then, it is only a dream. I suspect that come the dawn, the game will proceed in its somnolent fashion, to the predictable draw. At the end of which both captains will talk of playing more positively in the next game, and perhaps even say that the wicket went dead on them here and that is why they couldn't push for a win.

That wraps up the game of the day. But there are two off-the-ball issues that merit discussion.

The first relates to the Indian batting.

Consider some figures. Sidhu scored 68 of his runs with just 16 strokes. Which means that the other 63 runs came off 356 deliveries.

Mongia scored 34 runs off 8 strokes, and the other 23 off 174 deliveries.

Dravid, 15 off four, the other 18 off 113.

Tendulkar, 8 off two, 15 off 91.

Negative tactic or no, I find that unacceptable. That kind of statistic indicates as clearly as dammit that throughout the day, the Indian batsmen went one of two ways -- the big hit to the fence, or the dead, defensive push and no attempt whatsoever to work the single.

And this is becoming a chronic failing as far as India is concerned, whether in Tests or ODIs.

If I was Gaikwad, maybe I would do this. Simulate a Test, have the Indian batsmen play the best bowling in the country with the best fielders doing duty. And a simple rule, that if the ball reached the boundary, you were out -- whatever runs you score has to be scored through singles and twos and threes.

And I would keep them playing such games until taking singles becomes second nature to every single one of our much-vaunted stroke-players. For if there had been more of a push to work the ball around and take singles, Ranatunga would have been forced to rethink his strategy, try something else. In the event, he just tossed the ball to Jayasuriya and let the man bowl, literally unchanged, the same line and length, for 30 -- count them, 30 from a non-regular bowler, behind only Murali with 51 -- overs.

The point is, you can't sit back and expect the opposition to hand boundaries to you on a plate. You have to work for your runs, and three singles in an over gets you more, in the final analysis, than one four every five overs.

Point two is about Ranatunga's tactic. True, it was negative. Cripplingly, awfully so.

The funny thing is -- and I am wandering from the main point here -- that the only time the Lankan bowlers looked like getting a wicket was at the very end, when Vaas swung the second new ball around superbly and bothered both Azhar and Saurav Ganguly a bit outside off. But that new ball was delayed by three hours and 58 overs -- a phase of the match when the Lankan captain tried nothing other than the patience of the batsman, and the spectator.

And it is the spectator who is on my mind now. Today, if he wants entertainment, he is sure the next ODI is just a week or two away, so he doesn't have to shell out hard-earned money to go see a Test match.

And yet, with commendable enthusiasm, a few thousand people thronged the PCA stadium in Mohali today to watch the third day of a Test match.

Those thousands -- and so many other thousands like them who, defying the prophets of doom who say that Test cricket is dead and buried, continue to patronise the longer version of the game -- deserve more than to sit under the blazing sun, watching negativity at its stultifying, numbing worst.

There is no point blaming Ranatunga. Just as there was no point, earlier this year, in blaming Courtney Walsh when he had Shivnaraine Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper pull a similar stunt against the Indians.

Walsh then, Ranatunga today, did what the rules permitted them to do. So if there is a problem here -- and I suggest that boring spectators to tears and killing their interest in the game is a problem -- then said problem exists in the rules.

It is high time the ICC reviewed the policy of wides as pertaining to Test matches.

Why do they call wides in ODIs with such stringency? To prevent bowlers from bowling so far out of reach of the batsmen that the latter can't put bat to ball.

So why is it okay, in Tests, to bowl a ball two feet, sometimes more, down the leg side?

I have no problem with packing one side of the field or the other. Say seven on the off and the bowler bowling a line of off or outside. Or seven on leg, with line of leg stump. It is up to the batsman to use his feet, his bat, his technique, to overcome the trap, to work the ball around, to get runs.

But to do that, the ball has to be within reach. And I am sorry, but by no stretch of the imagination does a ball two feet outside leg qualify for that description.

In my book, that line of attack may be legal, but it is not cricket. Worse, it is the height of injustice to the paying spectator -- and I am afraid that increasingly, the attitude of administrators is amnesiac as far as the spectator is concerned. Cricket, to its administrators, is a game where a few toil so that their own bank balances may swell -- and the devil take the spectator.

And if that mindset continues, then one day, Mr Administrator is going to find an empty stadium. And a dead game.

The solution -- to this problem, at least -- is simple. Introduce the same rule, governing wides, that are now in place in the ODIs. That ends negativity right there -- and the spectator, I suspect, will raise a cheer for the ICC when that happens.

Scoreboard