Andy, Grant flower for Zimbabwe

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Just when you think ennui has set in and cricket has nothing new to offer, along comes an incident that wakes you up.

Day three of the India-Zimbabwe Test at the Queens' Sports Club in Bulawayo produced a first: a bowler, in this case Ashish Nehra, was taken off, in mid over, by the umpire for running on the pitch.

The incident happened in the 95th over of the Zimbabwe innings, Nehra's 27th. And the only wonder is that it took so long -- Nehra and Zaheer Khan were in trouble on this score right from the start of play, with both collecting two official warnings. As per the rule, two is all you get -- if the umpire has occasion to think you merit a third, then he hands you your sweater and cap and you're through with bowling for the remainder of the innings.

That is how it was with Nehra. It needs mentioning that the umpires in fact were unusually lenient on the left arm seamer, whose dead straight follow-through has him running down the pitch in just that area that is calculated to create a rough outside the right-hander's off stump.

Zaheer Khan solved the problem by going round the wicket when bowling to right handers and swinging wide of the crease when going over the wicket to left-handers. Nehra stayed over the wicket -- and finally paid for it, reducing India to a three-man attack in which one, Srinath, continued his patchy form.

Zimbabwe, for its part, fought back, hard and well.

At start of play, the home side was on 79/3, still well short of wiping off India's lead. And nightwatchman Bryan Murphy gave the bowling side the early breakthrough they were looking for: Zaheer Khan banged one in short, Murphy fended at it and Das, at short square leg, flung himself headlong to grab a superb reflexive catch. At that point, with Andy Flower walking in, Zimbabwe were 86/4, still 59 shy of wiping off the deficit.

Stuart Carlisle and Andy Flower then settled down to the job of rebuilding the innings. Carlisle's innings was patchy in places, his play against the off spin of Harbhajan Singh had the Indians leaping about in anticipation time and again, but to his credit, he hung on, focussed on staying at the crease, patiently left alone deliveries outside off, worked very hard for his 52 and played his part in a partnership that halted the Indians in their tracks.

The association was worth only 48, but its real value lay in the fact that the Indians were unable to crash through the Zimbabwean batting lineup in a hurry. It was Nehra, by then warned officially twice, who got the breakthrough when he makde one kick a bit and leave the right hander on the slant. Carlisle, who had been leaving those alone all through the first hour, drove at it and Laxman, at second slip, hheld with ease. Zimbabwe 134/5, still 11 short of clearing the deficit, and at that point, India was back in control.

Lunch was taken on 143/5. And then came the best session of batting in the match so far, as the two Flower brothers first halted the hard-pressing Indian bowlers, then slowly began turning it around with stroke-play of increasing fluency.

Andy Flower was -- yet again -- a revelation. In fact, he could well be a case study. Determined to do well, Andy got himself a personal trainer to work on his own fitness despite the fact that the team has a physio. He began learning Karate, to improve his footwork. And the effects of this, and various other tailormade self-improvement programmes, have been spectacularly visible -- Andy Flower now has 9 50s in his last 10 Test innings, and bats with a fluidity and authority that is nothing less than awesome.

Very controlled initially, focussing working the singles, Andy gradually began turning on the tempo. The best part of the session was his personal duel with Harbhajan Singh, whom he twice reverse swept, then paddled, with assurance. To counter this, the offie took to going back over the wicket and angling sharply in on leg stump, inviting the batsman to try again. A nice little tactical duel, which you'd have to call a draw. But the larger one, between the Flowers and the Indian bowlers, was a technical knockout in favour of the former as the brothers went in to tea, undefeated, with the score reading 230/5 after 81 overs, Andy Flower 79 off 143 deliveries and Grant on a patient 35 off 111.

It was Nehra, again, who broke through. The left arm seamer has problems with his run up (which, incidentally, have now presented coach John Wright with a new headache) but there's little else wrong with the way he bowls. Nice approach, very upright seam, and lovely use of the wrist behind the ball. Bowling with the second new ball, Nehra got one to swing in a shade, then seam back away from the left hander. Andy Flower went for the drive, was beaten for pace and bounce, and ended up playing uppishly for Ramesh to take another flier at gully.

Heath Streak was very lucky, almost immediately thereafter, to find the umpire turning down an LBW appeal, again off Nehra, that by any yardstick was plumb. Then came Nehra's exit from the bowling crease, and Zaheer Khan finally got to bowl.

While on that, the case of Zaheer is a bit of a mystery. Nehra was taken off in his 27th over, Srinath by then had bowled 25 overs that oscillated from sharp to mediocre, and yet Zaheer had gotten just 11 -- a clear case of under-employment, and rather strange when you remember that not so long ago, he was seen as India's lead bowler. Interestingly, the quickest ball of the match, to date, was his 87.6mph offering on the second evening.

In his first over of the spell, Zaheer struck when he let one fly quick and very full, Heath Streak attempted the flick and missed, took it on the pad, and got the umpire's finger. And with Nehra off the attack and Srinath too tired, Zaheer underlined the mystery of his exile with an aggressive spell late into the evening, including a few short-pitched deliveries and high-pitched natter at the obdurate Grant Flower.

Like brother Andy, Grant Flower dug deep inside himself to find reserves of skill and patience, and held his own against both seam and spin. His grim battle against Harbhajan was especially noteworthy, since he doesn't have his brother's assurance against the turning ball. Also meriting mention is the fact that Grant is by inclination a stroke-player, who doesn't take kindly to long periods of inactivity. Here, however, the team needed him to play the patience game, and the batsman responded magnificiently, content to play out maidens when he had to, staying focussed for well over four hours, and seizing on every loose delivery to score off.

Grant did have a life just before tea when Sachin Tendulkar, filling in a couple of overs before the new ball was taken, made a leg break turn very sharply to take the edge. Dighe spoilt what till then was a clean record, with a grab that saw the ball hit his finger and richochet out of reach of the slip fielder.

While on that, the Indian fielding merits mention. In the past, there have been occasions when the team has fielded very well in patches. But today, perhaps for the first time in recent memory, the standards -- and heads -- stayed up even during the session between lunch and tea, when the Flower brothers held sway. Desperate diving stops, and a general air of unrelenting alertness, lent an added edge to the bowlers. Another aspect worth underlining is that the Indians appear finally to have discovered the value of specialist fielders -- thus, Tendulkar and Laxman now automatically move into first and second slip for seam bowling, Laxman remains in slip for spin, Ramesh is a fixture at gully, Das and Dravid go under the helmet up close, and the results of such specialisation have shown in a serious of superb catches.

Andrew Blignaut, taking a leaf from the Harbhajan Singh batting book, defended dourly through the final hour (the word "hour" being used loosely here as the Indians, like Zimbabwe the previous day, went through their overs at a pace leisurely enough to push play well past scheduled close). At one point, 5.3 overs went by without a single run being added.

Play for the day ended with Zimbabwe 303/7 in 115 overs, two under the day's quota thanks to slow over rates and deteriorating line. Grant Flower walked off to a standing ovation for his 67 off 225 balls. Equally importantly, Blignaut stayed put in the middle for 60 deliveries for his 11, and Zimbabwe with a lead of 158, with an inform batsman still at the wicket, and with three wickets left, have now come right back into a game that, this morning, seemed as good as over.

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