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Ganguly rules, in Mohali

Prem Panicker

To my way of thinking, India missed a good bet this morning by not declaring at the overnight score.

The day dawned cloudy and heavy, and through the day, till a little after tea, stayed that way. The result, plenty of swing for the quick bowlers, and both the Lankan medium pacers, Chaminda Vaas and Sajeewa D'Silva, exploited it well to bowl very well in the morning.

Time and again, they beat the bat, and had both batsmen in trouble. D'Silva in particular got the ball to lift off a length, and Ranatunga for once missed a bet by not having a leg gully for Azharuddin. It is a position the Lankans man very often, and it was rather surprising to find it vacant today. As it turned out, Azhar fended two lifters from D'Silva in that direction, and got off both times because there was no one to take the catch.

And even Arjuna Ranatunga, who hasn't bowled in a Test since I don't know how long, took the ball before lunch, made the ball wobble through the air, and had the well set Ganguly groping.

Makes you wonder what the scene would have been, had the Lankan batsmen been batting instead. Mohanty and Ganguly are natural swingers of the ball, Srinath has that extra yard or three of pace, the contest would have been interesting. Oh well, put that one down to lost opportunity.

In the event, India resumed with their overnight not outs, and though there was a slightly more perceptible attempt to play strokes, it didn't look like either batsman was willing to take the initiative and go on the attack through the morning session. Loose deliveries were hit with conviction, but when the line was good, both Azhar and Ganguly preferred to play with the dead, defensive bat.

Seemed rather pointless, the whole thing, because every successive over put any prospect of a result further beyond the horizon.

Azharuddin duly got another 50, before going half cock forward to a Chaminda Vaas inswinger and getting rapped on the pad plumb in front. How does one sum up this particular knock? Sort of like the curate's egg -- good in parts. Yesterday, when he came in to bat, he looked very positive, and was getting runs with lovely little touches that had the fielders scurrying. Today, somehow, the timing was off, the delicacy of Azhar's play at his best was missing. The problem is that when Azhar is at the wicket, your mind's eye tends to dredge up, from memory, some of his more memorable forays. Like, for instance, that period after lunch at Cape Town when 11 of the first 14 deliveries he got went to the boundary, and commentators and spectators alike ran out of superlatives. That kind of an innings sets impossibly high standards, and I guess sometimes, you tend subconciously to measure every other innings against that -- and end up disappointed.

To my mind, Anil Kumble was the man of the day. He came out and for the first time in the Indian innings, displayed a sense of aggression. Three delectable drives, one through point and two through extra cover, brought the crowd to their feet and, more importantly, put the Indian innings into another gear. Kumble fell on the sweep, caught at backward square off Muralitharan, but by then he had contributed something much more important than the 22 runs that stand against his name -- and that was the seeds of aggression he sowed in Ganguly's mind.

Once Kumble began using his feet, Ganguly suddenly switched gears. Coming down the track time and again, he began hitting his strokes with authority and power, where earlier he was pushing to the fielders. And when Ganguly goes on the offensive, it is a lovely sight -- for sheer timing, he is as impeccable as a Swiss watch, and when he adds punch to it, fielding sides scatter.

That is what happened here.

Arun Lal has been something of a mentor to Ganguly, and I am beginning to take his words about Ganguly as gospel. When the left-hander was first picked for the England tour, Lal told some of us that we were bound to be surprised by the way he bats. He was right. Next time we chatted, Lal said, you wait till he starts playing strokes in one day games, you will sit up and take notice. I must confess to scepticism -- Ganguly is a relatively puny looking batsman, and I figured he would never pack the punch you need to clear the field in the one day game.

Boy, was I wrong! The minute Ganguly was upped the order, the strokes began to flow. It is not like he uses much power -- what he has going for him is a god given sense of timing. And a sure sense of positioning. Both of which explains the effortless ease with which he leaves the field standing with what look like gentle pushes into the off.

Recently, Arun Lal, again, told Harsha Bhogle during a chat that Ganguly was now ready to move up a gear, to begin using his head while he bats. "He has sorted his game out in his head, you will see an even further change now," Lal told Harsha.

That is what I saw today. The outside-leg line of Muralitharan and Dharmasena had frustrated the likes of Sidhu, Dravid, Azhar and Sachin, strokemakers all (interestingly, early this morning coach Anshuman Gaikwad had the Indian batsmen out in the middle, pointing to where the ball was landing when the bowlers went negative and showing them how to counter it). That same line, to Ganguly, proved disastrous. A series of sweeps saw Muralitharan go for fours, and forced Ranatunga to first post a man for the shot, and when he saw that Ganguly was playing it anyway and alternating with the paddle to get runs, to have two fielders behind the bat on the leg side to try and stem the tide of runs.

At which point, Ganguly changed tack. As the bowler delivered, he would take a step back, towards square leg -- effectively, walking round the ball, taking it on his off side, and smashing high and hard. One shot he played will live in memory -- Murali bowled one flat and fast about a foot wide of leg, Ganguly stepped back and away from the stumps, took the ball onto his pads, and played a gorgeous inside out straight drive over the top that lifted the ball effortlessly over the top and sent it crashing through the glass panes of, ironically, the Sri Lankan dressing room.

It was electrifying batting. But more importantly, it was thoughtful, innovative batting. And for his part, Abey Kuruvilla produced a stunner of a cameo. Each time Murali tossed the ball up, he was down the track with the footwork of a javelin thrower, to the pitch and hitting through the line with a clean, powerful swing of the bat -- as testified to by the three huge sixes he struck.

It was not all mindless slogging, either. As Ganguly neared his century, Kuruvilla throttled back, and began taking singles to give the strike back to his senior partner, careful not to lose his wicket and deprive Ganguly of company. And the minute the left-hander got to the landmark, Kuruvilla celebrated by dancing down to launch Murali way over the top and into the middle of the massed spectators.

It was spectacular batting. 97 runs came off 72 balls in just 53 minutes, and for each minute of that time, you found yourself wondering just why the earlier Indian batsmen hadn't displayed that sense of urgency.

Another interesting aspect of this period of play was an insight into the Sri Lankan psyche, at least as pertains to Tests.

In one dayers, they are totally unflappable. Hit one of their bowlers for a couple of sixes in a row and they smile and keep coming at you till you quit and die. Here, however, when the blitz went into overdrive, and when even the leg stump line failed, they totally lost it. Vaas, irritated by a Kuruvilla strike off through point off a perfectly bowled yorker, followed up with a beamer, full pitch, straight at the batsman's head. Immediately after delivering it, he looked at his fingers and pretended the ball had slipped -- but too many bowlers all over the world have used that ploy, and I don't reckon anyone was fooled. Then came an over from Muralitharan, with Kuruvilla on strike, when he kept having to go further and further outside leg stump, on two occasions beating the keeper's despairing dive and giving away four byes, the following up with one so wide that it was called wide, and which, too, reached the boundary.

Proves a point -- that no matter who you are, pressure can get to you. There is no doubting Muralitharan's class -- to my mind, he ranks ahead of Saqlain Mushtaq as the best off spinner in the world today. But hey, he is human too -- and Kuruvilla and Ganguly, by their display, hopefully indicated to the Indian batsmen who had gone before them, and who then lined the pavilion to applaud the flurry of strokes from their bats, just how human the bowlers were.

An attempted chip over midwicket that went to hand marked the end of Ganguly's innings -- his second successive century against Sri Lanka, incidentally. And also brought an end to the Indian innings, 146 runs ahead of the Sri Lankan total.

Did India make a mistake by not declaring immediately after lunch?

To my mind, no. If a declaration were coming, it had to come in the morning, in order to throw down the gauntlet and put pressure on the batsmen. Having batted on, rather ponderously -- 72 runs off 30 overs -- through the morning session, it didn't make much of a difference whether or no India declared at the break. And given that the extended innings gave Ganguly the opportunity to play the kind of innings that sends one's confidence skyrocketing may well prove a blessing for the Tests still to come.

And that brings with it a thought -- isn't it time Ganguly was upped to number three?

Earlier -- last year, in fact -- it was Rahul Dravid who was the more assured of the two. And thus, it was Dravid who displaced Ganguly and stepped into the number three spot. Today, the tide has reversed -- it is Ganguly who is the man in form. Having him come in at three puts a left-right combination in place, for one thing. And gives the man in form that much more time to play a long innings without the fear of running out of partners.

Critics might argue that this is playing ducks and drakes with the batting lineup. But hey, rigidity of thought can sometimes become rigor mortis of the mind -- and I, for one, see no sense in sending in the batsman who is in the best touch of all your top order players in at number six, with only the tail to follow for company. Or, if Dravid is being retained at three to anchor the innings, then maybe Ganguly needs to come in at four, with either Azhar or Sachin following. Just a thought.

Sri Lanka came in to bat, needing to play out 24 overs. And the first three balls of the innings indicated just what India had missed out on by not bowling first thing this morning. Each of them, from Srinath, was a beauty -- angling across, pitching on off, drawing Jayasuriya forward blindly, and seaming rapidly away to beat the bat for pace and movement. On the third successive occasion that this happened, Jayasuriya drew away, shaking his head in disgust.

Sachin responded by giving Srinath perhaps the most aggressive field an Indian quick has had in a very long time -- four slips, gully, silly point, forward short leg and, in one over, also a leg slip. (The pity is that Sachin does not appear to have as much faith in his other new ball bowlers -- Debashish Mohanty bowled with three slips for one over, and with just two after that. Had he had a third slip in place, Aravinda D'Silva would have joined the list of casualties, as Mohanty beat him with a beauty that drew him forward and seamed away late to fly off the edge to where third slip should have been).

With that many close fielders, the outfield was going to be unprotected, and Jayasuriya followed up a streaky four over the heads of slips with two authentic cover drives that rocketed to the fence. The second of those strokes prompted Srinath to slip into his latest tactic -- round the wicket to the left-hander.

It was this line that had got Jayasuriya and Ranatunga out in the first innings. And the very first ball that he bowled round the wicket this time ended Jayasuriya's second innings -- bowled from wide of the crease at top pace, the ball broke back off the seam, cutting the batsman in half, taking the inner edge of the bat and flying between bat and body through to the keeper.

There is enormous interest in Srinath's comeback. More so in what changes, if any, the injury has made to the bowler. By the evidence of the first innings and his six overs thus far in the second, I noticed only one. Unlike earlier, Srinath now tends to hold the seam very very upright. And somewhere along the way, he has learnt, apparently, to bowl the vicious breakback to either right- or left-hander. Essentially, it is the ball that darts in very fast off the seam after pitching -- an off or leg break bowled at top speed. (One other difference is that he still flicks the ball in underhand, not pushing his shoulder hard when throwing from the line).

It was the leg break (off, to the left hander) that did for Jayasuriya. And a while later, the off break that did for Mahanama. The batsman -- an opening batsman in his own right -- looked very uncomfortable against Srinath in the first innings and again, here, he was beaten by a stream of deliveries leaving the bat. Then came the breakback, bowled at top pace, hustling in off the line outside off, pushing the batsman onto the back foot, slipping past the bat to thud into back pad in front of middle stump. No doubt about that one. And Sri Lanka 40/2.

To me, however, the ball of the day was the last ball of that over, and his second to Aravinda D'Silva. That was easily the fastest he has ever bowled, it was pitched middle and off, it took off after pitching, and D'Silva hardly had time to bring his bat down before it zipped past, clipping the pad on the way to the keeper. The appeal for caught behind would have been upheld nine times out of ten, because it all happened very fast and even Aravinda seemed a bit unsure about where the ball had gone and how. Steve Bucknor, though, had a brilliant day today, and his judgement in turning down the appeal was spot on.

Much is written about bad decisions. I think that today, a word needs to be said about Bucknor -- that was umpiring at its very best. Twice, very close calls for LBW were turned down with calm assurance -- and both times, after numerous replays, the experts were forced to admit he was right. Then came the Jayasuriya decision -- and when Mongia appealed for the catch, the first reaction of the TV commentators was that it came off the shirtsleeve of the batsman. Bucknor, again, raised his finger without a shadow of doubt -- and on the replay, it was clear that he had got it right again. Take a bow, Mr Bucknor.

Sachin had a dilemma -- Srinath was clearly bowling his heart out. But how long does one keep a bowler like that on for? The temptation is always to give him one more over, try for one more wicket. I think the captain got it right by taking him off at the end of the first hour of the Lankan innings, and not risking exhausting Srinath totally. Instead, Sachin switched Mohanty's end around, let him bowl into the breeze while Kuruvilla came in against it.

Both Indian medium pacers bowled well in support, but neither of them has Srinath's extra yards of pace. Thus, gradually, runs came. 61 of them by close.

On the day, it was Atapattu more than Aravinda who impressed me. The youngster has had a torrid time in Test cricket, getting duck after duck at the start of his career. But the footwork is good, the strokeplay assured, the talent certainly there. And now, the confidence is there too -- he bats with a calm assurance that makes you realise he is going to be a nuisance to bowlers round the world for some time to come.

The cloud cover meanwhile forced the umpires into hauling out their light meters. Tendulkar quickly tossed the ball to his spinners, but after an over apiece by Chauhan and Kumble, the umpires offered the light to the batsmen, who accepted with alacrity. India at that point still had five overs of their quota to bowl.

Nothing wrong with the decision by the umpires -- the light was deteriorating by then.

But I can't help but wonder why, given that the ICC has agreed to the use of artificial lights in Test matches, both sides did not think about it and work the provision into the rules governing this particular tournament?

Having got the official nod, I would have thought that all countries would automatically make the provision to turn the lights on a part of the playing conditions.

Here, it hasn't been done. And thus the majestic light towers of Mohali stayed doused, and the game ended, for the day, five overs before it should have.

And so to the last day. The prospects are for an interesting morning -- more so if it is as cloudy as it was this morning. The ball should swing and seam around, which should interest Mohanty and Kuruvilla. And early in the morning, there will be that extra life in the wicket, which should light Srinath's eyes up.

Opposing them, are two very fine batsmen.

Contests like this are what puts the 'test' in Test cricket. Watch for it.

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