India maintain unbeaten run

Curiously enough for a team rated poor chasers, India seems to be making a practice of winning tosses, bowling first and going on to win the match.

The final league game of the triseries followed the pattern. Ganguly called right and inserted the opposition. India, still playing around with its bowling lineup, continued to produce a tight, solid performance with the ball, remained electric in the field (the fielding performance in this series has been -- more so if you consider this is the Indian team we are talking of, amazing) and then rode on the back of a hard-hitting opening partnership and to cruise through to the win.

Debashish Mohanty and Ashish Nehra started it off with a tight spell of controlled seam bowling. This time round, though they kept beating the bat or finding its edges, the early breakthrough eluded them -- but 30/0 on the board at the end of the 10th over meant that they had succeeded in the first objective of an ODI bowling performance, namely keeping the lead batsmen from breaking loose.

Harbhajan Singh, brought back into the side for this game, gave India its first breakthrough when he flighted one up around the left-handed Gayle's off stump and turned it away. The opener drove, misreading the turn, and managed only to spoon it a bit for Reetinder Sodhi at extra cover to dive and hold a beauty (47/1).

Wavell Hinds joined Darren Ganga. They put their heads down and ensured that the Windies didn't lose wickets in a hurry -- but runs weren't forthcoming and at 112/1 at the end of 30 (Ganga doing the bulk of the work, and getting to 52), the West Indies scoring seemed too slow to get to the 275+ that on this track would count as a challenging score.

Ganga had a let off in the very next over when some bad calling and running saw Ganga short of his ground when Tendulkar, the bowler, took off the bails. The umpire was in no position to judge, but decided against the appeal rather than ask for the third umpire's ruling.

In the very next over, though, Ganga played one in front on the off, looked to sneak the single but Hinds did not respond and Dighe did well to race around, pick up and throw the stumps down before Ganga retraced his steps.

Shivnaraine Chanderpaul is an accumulator -- the Windies cause would probably have been better served by Hooper at that point. Instead, what it got was a Hinds half century, and a slow progress to 162 in the 42nd over, when Chanderpaul attempted to finesse a Mohanty delivery off his pads, but managed only to scoop it up for midwicket to hold with ease.

Wavell Hinds finally decided to try and do something about the run rate, and attempted a pull off a Harvinder Singh delivery that climbed on him and found the top edge to give the bowler a return catch.

Hooper and Ridley Jacobs, coming in ahead of Sarwan, then threw the bat around with some purpose, but Hooper was really under pressure to hit hard and often, got away with a mistimed slog from off to on when Nehra got under it at wide long on and grassed it in the 45th over. But in the 47th, an attempt to repeat saw Dravid, taking over that position from Nehra, hold an indentical chance with ease.

Windies struggled its way to 229/5 in the allotted overs, and India yet again went in at the halfway mark with every reason to feel pleased.

In their last outing, Tendulkar seemed content to play it like a Test match. This time, with a bigger target confronting the team, he got off the blocks like a rocket, with three blistering fours in the very first over. In the third -- more relevantly, from India's longer range point of view -- Ganguly joined the party, and with both openers firing, raced to 36/0 in 5.

Once Ganguly got the range on his shots, he began batting like we haven't seen from him in a long while now. Colin Stuart, the new bowler being tried out by the Windies in place of the economical Cameron Cuffy, found himself confronting a changed Indian captain, and got taken for two fours in succession in his very first over. The next over had Dillon smashed, first ball, for six by Sachin over midwicket, to bring up the 53 of the partnership off just 46 balls -- and the game at that point was as good as won.

From then on, it got even better as both batsmen matched each other shot for shot. The real indication that Ganguly was back to something close to his prime form came when he danced down the wicket to Nagamootoo to play the shot he plays better than anyone else in the side -- the lofted long drive over the long on boundary for six.

India moved to 128/0 at the halfway mark but an over later, Ganguly again went down the track this time to Dillon, failed to get under the ball, and ended up hitting the flattish drive into the gut of mid off posted halfway back to the boundary.

Shewag came in at one drop, and was unlucky to be given out when Ridley Jacobs gathered the ball in his left glove, took the bails off with his right, and appealed. Again, the square leg umpire this time gave the decision without reference to the third umpire -- and the keeper looked a bit sheepish while his mates celebrated the dismissal.

Hemang Badani was sent in at four to get some batting practice but on the day, seemed to have a problem getting his foot movement in gear, and left early, playing all round a Hooper delivery to have India 156/3 at the end of 30 overs.

Rahul Dravid then kept Tendulkar company in a 50 run partnership that eased India past the 200-mark -- only to yet again play around a fullish length ball attempting to on drive, and get himself yorked.

Reetinder Sodhi finally got a chance to bat for some measurable amount of time -- and revealed himself as a lad of promise, not merely in his ability to work the ball around and keep the board ticking, but also in terms of a calm, unflappable temperament. With Tendulkar, at the other hand, having got to his 29th ODI century and batting, increasingly, with embarassing ease, the fat lady had effectively sung long before the Indians actually went past their target. Sodhi (16 off 21) finished it off with a lofted off drive for four off the first ball of the 49th to complete a six wicket win with 11 balls to spare, Tendulkar went back unbeaten, and India completed its league phase with four wins and no losses against its name.