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Raining on India's parade

The superstitious -- I wonder if there are any such in this Indian cricket team? -- must about now be thinking that maybe the team has majorly irritated the rain god.

Time and again, it happens -- India plays itself into a position of strength, and down it comes in buckets. Happened in South Africa. In the Caribbean. And now here, at the Vidharbha Cricket Association ground in Nagpur.

What is the answer? Play most of its cricket in the Sahara desert, maybe?

On a less facetious note, only 24 overs of play was possible on day three. In that time, India moved on from the overnight 401, to 485 all out. Lots of drama and excitement -- but is it all going to be sound and fury, signifying nothing?

Prognoscis for the morrow shelved for now, first an update on the day's events.

The most interesting facet of the first hour of play, for me, was that 55 runs were added in 11 overs. This, despite a go-slow by the Lankans, as evidenced by the fact that only eleven overs were bowled in one hour, as against the mandatory 15, that too with a spinner operating from one end (In fact, it was funny in a sense to see Ravindra Pushpakumara walk back to the start of his bowling runup -- there was, in the dragging footsteps, something of a schoolboy walking to class knowing that he hadn't done his homework). And despite a field placing that had all the fielders spread to stop runs.

How was this done? Simply because the Indian not out batsmen, Ganguly and Kumble, looked for singles all the time. They never played a defensive shot -- instead, they stroked the ball out into the field, placing to left or right of the fielders, sprinting with the stroke, and getting over five runs an over through the hour, despite there being only three boundary hits in that time.

An object lesson in how to keep the scoreboard moving and pile the pressure on the bowling side, that. And again, it makes you wonder -- if the Indians know how to do this, as they so obviously do, then why the heck don't they bat with this kind of sense and application all the time? Why this inexplicable oscillation between the sublime and the downright ridiculous?

The guy who can find an answer to that, I suspect, will make his fortune.

The Lankan attitude in the field meanwhile continues to be inexplicable. Right from the start, the thinking seemed to be, let's go through the motions, keep the Indians from blazing away, and wait for the declaration. That there is an alternative -- to wit, try and get wickets -- never appeared to have crossed their minds at any stage.

This particular mindset was best epitomised by one little incident. The day had dawned cloudy and grey, and the umpires, after about eight overs, met in mid pitch and began inspecting their light meters. Ranatunga promptly took the ball out of Murali's hands -- the offie was just preparing to continue his spell -- and tossed it to Ravindra Pushpakumara.

The reasoning was very obvious -- Ranatunga obviously hoped that the sight of his fastest bowler would prompt the umpires into offering the light to the Indian batsmen, and everyone could go sit in the pavilion and waste some more time.

The big problem there is that even if the light had been offered, the Indians were hardly likely, at that stage, to have accepted it, preferring instead to carry on. In the event, though, even as Ranatunga was setting the field for his fast bowler, the umpires decided not to offer the light. At which the Lankan captain immediately took the ball away from Pushpakumara and gave it back to Muralitharan -- and walked away to his fielding position with a bit of metaphorical egg on his face.

Full marks there for shrewdness, presence of mind, the readiness to seize every chance. But there is, I suspect, a larger question. Is Sri Lanka serious when it says it wants to be the best Test-playing nation by the year 2000? If yes, this, I would think, is no way to go about it. I mean, sure, you might figure your bowlers are not exactly earth-shattering. But squatting on your heels and playing defensively does not get you anywhere, does it? To be a good -- let alone the best -- Test playing nation, you have to bowl a side out twice. Here, in two successive Tests, despite playing on pitches that, unlike the one at the Premadasa Stadium during India's tour there earlier this year, were not flat batting tracks, there was never any attempt to attack, to try and get wickets. The very real danger for Sri Lanka, at this rate, is that they will get slotted as an exciting one day side, but a damn boring, draw-oriented Test side -- and increasingly, they will get invited only for ODI series.

After the first drinks break, we were again witness to one of those shocking decisions -- and nothing is more shocking than when a third umpire gets one dead wrong. I mean, if you can't rule on a run out despite having a clear view from all possible angles, there is something drastically wrong somewhere.

Here, Ganguly pushed and called for a single. Kumble responded. Realised he was not going to make his ground, and dived, sliding the bat along the ground. The direct throw broke the stumps. The third umpire was called in. On the replay, it clearly showed that the bat had slid half its length into the crease when the ball thudded into the stumps. No doubt, except in the mind of third umpire P S Godbole.

Leads to a question -- why is the BCCI so penny pinching that it hires umpires from the local league to man the third umpire's chair? Godbole has never umpired a Test in his life, how does he get to become third umpire in an international game? Is it that the BCCI figures no one is going to see the man, so they can get some cut-price person and tuck him behind the monitor? Bad attitude, that -- and conducive to the kind of stupidity we saw out there today.

Kumble, meanwhile, must have cursed his luck. His highest in Tests was 88 -- made in Calcutta against the South Africans last November while, at the other end, Mohammad Azharuddin played an electrifying knock. Here, again, he held his own, despite the fact that Saurav Ganguly, whom Geoffrey Boycott styles the "Prince of Calcutta", was holding court at the other. And when he got out, he in fact was outscoring Ganguly, and looking set for a century.

It is interesting enough to see him apply himself with the bat. He always had the ability, what he has lacked all along is application. If he now begins to get wickets as well, then India will, in one stroke, have solved the all-rounder problem. And if captain and coach get their thinking caps on right, India will have two, not one, of them -- a bowling all-rounder in Kumble, and a batting all-rounder in Ganguly. And the huge advantage of that, in both the Test and ODI formats, is too obvious to need elaboration.

The rest of the morning's play was serio-comedy. At one end, Ganguly -- approaching his third successive century. At the other end, a succession of tailenders who alternated between trying to hit everything out of the park (vide Srinath and Chauhan) and getting into ridiculous contortions trying to take a single and give Ganguly the strike and let him get there (Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni).

Ganguly, by way of anticlimax, got himself out one run short of the landmark. In one over, Sanath Jayasuriya, bowling over the wicket to the left hander, concentrated on bowling as far down leg side as he possibly could without seriously endangering short fine leg standing up for the sweep. A frustrated Ganguly tried all he could to get bat to ball, and managed only a single off the last ball to move to 99. So when Pushpakumara bowled the first ball of the next over short and outside off, Ganguly, in his eagerness, reached for a full-blooded drive rather than staying back and guiding it for the single he needed, and edged to the only close-catching fielder in sight, namely, slip.

A pity, that -- Ganguly had played brilliantly throughout, and deserved that century and the chance to go into the books as one of very few players to score three 100s on the trot (remember that Azharuddin did that in his first three innings in international cricket?). Also, a bit of a lesson -- the idea of a negative line is to work on your patience, to frustrate you. And the only counter is to remain calm and focussed, not get flustered and lose it completely.

In the event, the rest of the wickets fell as the tail just swung lustily without worrying about keeping their wickets intact, and India finished up with 485 off 155 overs.

A creditable, positive performance, that, and a distinct relief after the feet-dragging of Mohali.

One question that remains, though, is -- did Tendulkar and Gaikwad delay the declaration too long?

Frankly, I don't see how they could have declared earlier. At the end of the first hour? Had he done that, Ganguly would have missed out on an opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime and that too, to very few. And, incidentally, it would have given further fodder to those who propagate the view that there is jealousy and animosity between the captain and the left-handed batting star from Bengal.

After Ganguly's exit? There was another problem there. The light was fading rapidly, the rain-clouds were shrouding the stadium. And there was just about 20 minutes to lunch. Had India declared then, the Lankans would have come out, Srinath would have taken the ball -- and remember that Srinath is genuinely quick, not a fast medium bowler -- forcing the umpires to offer light to the Lankan batsmen, and they would have happily accepted and walked off. Thus wasting more time.

One last thought on the Indian innings -- only one bowler consistently attacked and bowled a wicket-taking line. No coincidence, then, that Ravindra Pushpakumara ended up with a five wicket haul, on a track where, till now, eight bowlers have taken five or more in an innings and all eight have been spinners.

Underlines the point that you won't get wickets unless you try.

Meanwhile, steady drizzle after lunch meant that no further play was possible in the day. So what of the rest of this game?

Any assessment has to include the one imponderable -- rain. The forecast is for more rain tomorrow. But that was the forecast for the second day too, and in the event, it turned out to be bright and sunny. So, on whether or no it will rain, your guess is as good -- or bad, actually -- as mine.

Assuming it does not rain, what then? Over the next two days, a total of 180 overs are mandatory, wind and weather permitting. The pitch is cracking, and will help spinners prepared to toss it up and let it hit the deck to gain nip and bounce. But the most important factor is seam. There will be underground moisture, the pitch is covered and will stay that way till play resumes, which means in turn that it will "sweat", and good seam bowling will be very, very difficult to handle. More so if the atmosphere turns out to be cloudy -- aiding swing in the air, on top of seam movement off the pitch.

India has absolutely nothing to lose from here on -- you just can not lose this one from here (in fact, it increasingly looks like you cannot lose to Sri Lanka in Tests in the foreseeable future, at least not until they discover the kind of bowlers who can bowl sides out twice in five days -- unlike one dayers, you can't win Tests with the bat).

So you have nothing to lose in going for a win. In bowling with four slips, a silly point, short square leg, maybe even a leg slip, and letting Srinath slip his leash and go flat out in short, sharp bursts at top pace, while Kuruvilla keeps the other end bottled up. Get a few cheap wickets and, hey, who knows, right?

One thing for sure -- I would be very, very surprised if I see a field setting with players saving runs, rather than looking for wickets.

The attitude to go in with, in my book, would be -- okay, not sure if the rain will hold off long enough for us to get you guys out twice, but we can at the least give you a bloody good scare.

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