Defeat stares Zimbabwe
Prem Panicker
The Indian innings, on day two of the first Test against Zimbabwe, proved a
larger point.
For years now, the media has been beating its collective breast, and ruing
the fact that successive Indian captains and coaches have not been
supportive of their players. Also, that they have failed to extract, from
the lower half of the batting lineup, a sense of commitment and dedication,
the ability to put a price on their wickets, and to get the team a few vital
extra runs.
Enter John Wright. When Samir Dighe kept like a novice in the third Test
against Australia in Chennai, there was a collective demand for his head.
But then he showed grit with the bat, and helped steer India to the win that
clinched the series.
"This guy's got attitude, we need him and more like him in the side," Wright
declared and, with the captain joining in, fought to ensure that Dighe
retained his place in the side. Simultaneously, the Wright-Ganguly combine
worked on the tailenders, pushing them into practising their batting more,
and putting a greater premium on their wickets.
Public displays of confidence such as the one Dighe received, and constant
exhortations to try hard with the bat, do have an effect. Quantified in
terms of runs, this is the story: The fifth Indian wicket fell with the
score on 98. The second half added 220 runs to the total.
Even granting that Srinath's promotion meant that Sachin Tendullkar was the
sixth to go, the score at that point was 178. The last four wickets thus
added a further 140.
More to the point, Samir Dighe and Harbhajan Singh got together with the
score on 208/7, and Zimbabwe well in with a chance to race through the rest
of the batting and keep the lead down to a minimum. Both played contrasting
innings -- the commonality being the application they brought to their job.
A 72-run partnership for the 8th wicket swung the game entirely India's way,
and a further 38 runs added by Harbhajan in tandem with last man Ashish
Nehra underlined the point that the Indian team now wears a tail with a bit
of attitude.
Having said that, India through some rather ordinary batting in the morning
and afternoon, abdicated a chance to really pin Zimbabwe to the wall. The
story began as early as the first over of play, when Watambwa bowled one on
the leg stump, Srinath flicked, and Guy Whittall dived headlong to take a
brilliant catch in front of the square leg umpire.
Sourav Ganguly came to the wicket needing to find form, and runs. He seemed
intent, early on, on the job of digging himself in. And was just beginning
to move his feet well when an unfortunate dismissal had him risking another
warning, for protest, before walking off. Heath Streak went round the wicket
and banged one in short, having set a forward and backward square leg to let
the batsman know it was coming. The line was off, Ganguly shaped to play
then pulled out, the ball brushed his sleeve on the way through, and the
umpire upheld the appeal for a caught behind.
That brought Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid together. All morning, Sachin
had seemed intent on playing out the overs, never pushing on his shot-making
and time and again, electing to check shots to deliveries he would, in
another frame of mind, have smashed with murderous intent. Dravid,
meanwhile, has since his demotion to six shown a willingness to look for
shot-play, and the two together moved the score along smoothly. The 50 of
the partnership in fact came off just 53 balls, with Dravid outscoring
Sachin 27 (off 33 balls) to 21.
Having got past his 50, Sachin Tendulkar was just beginning to up his tempo
when he fell, to another bit of brilliance in the field from the
Zimbabweans. Blignaut, easily the most wayward of the bowlers on view,
bowled one wide of off, Sachin launched into a drive aimed at slamming the
ball past extra cover, hit a bit too hard at it, got the thick edge and
Stuart Carlisle at second slip flung himself to his right and snaffled a
ball that was rocketing past him en route the third man boundary.
That wicket fell just on the stroke of lunch, India having made 96 runs in
the morning session in 24 overs. Post lunch, it was Blignaut who resumed the
attack, rather surprisingly given the runs he was giving away. Rahul Dravid,
who seemed in very good touch (like Andy Flower against the Indians, Dravid
loves the Zimbabweans, averaging close to 190 against them), was
particularly severe on the bowler, driving him repeatedly on both sides of
the wicket and pulling when the ball was dropped short.
One pull too many, though, caused his downfall. Blignaut bowled short, and
wide of off, Dravid opted for the short arm swat from off to leg, mishit,
put the ball high in the air and Andy Flower behind the stumps took a dolly.
Dravid's 44 had come in an uncharacteristic 67 balls, and the wicket went
just when he seemed to have had the measure of the attack.
And then came the partnership of the match, as a determined Dighe and a
flamboyant Harbhajan settled down to put the attack to the sword. Dighe was
content to push the ball off the square and race very sharp, and very well
judged, singles; Harbhajan on the other hand went for his shots and as his
confidence improved, began hitting them with amazing panache. A lofted six
over long on off Murphy was Harbhajan's most productive shot, but for me the
shot of the partnership, perhaps of the match itself, was an amazing square
drive to a ball of yorker length from Streak, Harbhajan stepping away to
make room for the shot and hitting with incredible confidence off the full
length around his off stump.
Dighe's vital stats tell a story: Off 95 balls faced, he defended to 71, and
scored as many as 13 singles in his 47. He was looking good for a fifty when
he flicked at a ball from Streak going down the leg side, for Andy Flower to
hold way down the leg side.
Streak, later in the same over, took out Zaheer Khan with a beautiful
delivery around off, climbing steeply and cutting back in. Zaheer shaped to
defend, couldn't control the shot, and found the ball going back onto his
stumps off the high part of the bat.
And then came the association that had to be seen to be believed. It was not
about the 38 runs they added, but the way they did it. As soon as Nehra
walked in, Harbhajan took over the senior partner's role, talking to his
partner before every delivery, encouraging, exhorting -- and each time Nehra
got behind the line and played the ball, Harbhajan at the other end had his
hands up, applauding.
On the stroke of tea, Watambwa banged one in, Harbhajan pushed at it, the
ball got the thick edge onto pad to balloon in the air and the bowler, on
his follow through, checked, changed direction, then dived headlong to hold
a catch in keeping with the high standards the Zimbaweans had set all day.
Umpire Harper turned it down.
The post lunch session produced 125 runs, and Harbhajan, courtesy the
umpire, walked in to tea unbeaten on 54. As with Dighe, stats tell a story:
71 balls faced, 66 runs scored, 44 dot balls and 12 singles in there besides
10 authentic fours and the huge six over long on off Murphy. Equally, Ashish
Nehra kept him company facing 31 deliveries, defending to 25 of those, and
taking five singles in his nine.
An attempted pull off Watambwa (Bajju, in fact, had earlier played a superb
hook off a Streak bouncer) however misfired, the ball too close to body for
the shot, and Harbhajan holed out to mid on, India finishing up with 318 off
89.5 overs.
Streak and Watambwa were the pick of the Zimbabwe bowlers, Blignaut despite
his two wickets was pedestrian, and Olonga appeared to have some niggling
injury that kept him off the field longer than he was on it.
Javagal Srinath had an eminently forgettable first innings with the ball.
The second time out, he was closer to the kind of bowler his captain needed
him to be: quick, incisive, and very sure of length and line. Dion Ebrahim
was his first victim, finding a breakback at speed too hard to handle and
pushing it into the hands to forward short leg to have Zimbabwe at 14/1.
The second wicket fell to the kind of catching that the Zimbabweans had
displayed earlier in the day. Srinath bowled one just outside off, Guy
Whittall opted to drive hard at it, the ball flew in the air and Ramesh, at
gully, flung himself headlong to snatch a beauty. Zimbabwe 34/2.
Srinath almost made it three in a row when he made one kick up at Stuart
Carlisle. On the defensive prod, the ball took the pad, then hit the glove
and Dravid dived to hold at short square leg. The celebrations, though,
proved premature as Umpire Harper, yet again, missed a clear decision.
Both Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan pushed themselves in their respective
spells -- and both earned an official warning apiece for running on the
wicket. Which means that with a lot of work remaining in the innings,
India's two left-arm seamers are in the high risk zone, another warning
automatically ensuring that the bowler getting it won't be able to bowl
again in the innings.
Harbhajan for one wouldn't complain too loudly. Introduced late in the day,
the offie immediately got the ball to jump and turn appreciably, hitting the
rough caused by the left arm seamer outside the right hand batsman's off
stump. Carlisle looked all at sea and time and again, defending off the back
foot, found the ball going dangerously close to the fielder at leg slip. As
it turned out, though, it was Campbell who went, Harbhajan going round the
wicket and looping one up on length around off, the batsman pushed at it,
got the edge onto pad and Das at short square had a simple take. Campbell
yet again failed to actualise his talent, going for 16 and Zimbabwe at 63/3
found itself sliding again.
Bryan Murphy, sent in as night watchman, survived. He wouldn't be able to
tell you how. At sea against Harbhajan, he found his problems magnified when
Tendulkar came in, turned an off break a mile in to hit the pad for a close
LBW shout, then turned one the other way to find the edge, the ball flashing
in the air between keeper and slip. In the next over, an arm ball from
Harbhajan had Carlisle standing square, taking the ball right between his
legs in front of middle stump, the umpire turning down the LBW appeal much
to the bemusement of the Indians.
Play ended with Zimbabwe on 79/3. And left the game just where Test matches
should be -- heading into a third day that can turn the game one way or the
other, decisively. By the time play ends tomorrow, we'll know, one way or
the other, what the most likely outcome of the match is.
'A good spinner can get turn on any track'
Harbhajan Singh on the Zimbabwe tour, in Real Audio.
The interview was conducted in Hindi.