8-wicket win ends overseas drought

Prem Panicker

From Lord's and Leeds', 1986 to Bulawayo, 2001, has been a long and painful journey.

But when the drought of overseas wins ended, however, it happened in anticlimactic fashion. At start of play on day four, the game had interesting possibilities -- a track that had eased off into a batting beauty, a batsman in Grant Flower who had shown exemplary skill and focus the previous evening, a partner in Arnoldus Blignaut who showed obduracy and a willingness to apply himself.

If Zimbabwe could harness these advantages to add 100 more runs to their lead, India could well have come under pressure, the fact that it hasn't had any overseas wins in all these years adding that bit of mental uncertainity.

Within an hour of start of play, though, the denouement was evident. Zimbabwe lost its three remaining wickets in quick order, then came out to defend a very modest 183 with two frontline bowlers, Heath Streak and Henry Olonga, out of the game through injury.

The Indian bowling looked sharp this morning, with Srinath once again having one of his mood swings and getting into a great groove right from the start, while Zaheer at the other end bowled with pace and accuracy. The runs dried up, four successive maidens added to the pressure, and that in turn brought about an error.

Grant Flower drove out on the on side and ran with the shot, Rahul Dravid at mid on ran round the ball, picked up and with one stump to aim it, hit it on the full with the batsman well out of his ground, and Zimbabwe lost its last recognised batsman with the score on 308/8.

Henry Olonga came out with a torn hamstring, and a runner. Srinath tested him out around off, then swung wide of the crease, angled one in to the off stump on yorker length, and cleaned Olonga up. Shortly thereafter, Andy Blignaut -- who showed good skill in using the long handle against Harbhajan Singh -- swished at the offie, got a thick edge down to short fine leg, Watambwa came charging down the pitch looking for a single, and was caught well short when the bowler took the bails off.

India needed 183 to win. Zimbabwe needed wickets -- and didn't have the bowling to get them. Olonga's hamstring had kicked in as early as the first innings, and Streak, when batting, took a painful crack on the knee that ruled him out from the bowling crease.

Watambwa almost made up for the loss of the two frontline seamers with a superb opening spell characterised by immaculate control and much variation in pace, length and line. There was a bit of a ruckus between the bowler and Sadagoppan Ramesh, with both players having some words for each other before the umpire stepped in and reimposed control.

Ramesh seemed a touch sobered by his continued poor form, and settled down to just spend time out in the middle. Das meanwhile played as he always does -- calm, unhurried, content to watch them through outside off all day if needed, and very quick to pounce on anything that seemed remotely hittable.

In the post lunch session, Das began with a let off when Blignaut held one back and the batsman drove too early, back down the track. The bowler got both hands to it and grassed a simple chance, and Das promptly rubbed it in by launching an assault on Watambwa, cracking him for four fours in an over and upping the tempo of the innings.

Ramesh, patience personified till that point, apparently decided to try and emulate his partner. In the event, he chased after a wide one from Blignaut, got the edge, and was out to a sharp slip catch -- a distressingly regular facet of his batting.

VVS Laxman came in and batted like he was in the nets, stroking smoothly against the seam of Blignaut and Watambwa and the spin of Brian Murphy. Grant Flower was introduced as a desperation ploy by acting captain Guy Whittall, but his second ball got the wicket as Laxman played a casual drive back down the track for the bowler to take on the follow through.

Sachin Tendulkar and Shiv Sundar Das (whose ability to put a real premium on his wicket and to play the long, controlled innings is rapidly earning him the respect of his mates) guided the team through to tea in circumspect fashion, then came back after the break to open up and quickly hit up the remainder of the runs and complete the win with eight wickets to spare.

Looked at one way, it's no big deal. Zimbabwe is hardly the strongest opposition in the business today -- but then, it needs remembering that India has, during this 15-year drought, had three earlier opportunities against this same team, lost twice, and managed only a draw on the third occasion.

What the win really does for the side is break a certain mental block it had developed when it came to playing abroad. Time and again, during this decade and a half, India has found itself in winning positions, and choked. Time and again, members of the side in private conversation admit that there is a touch of under-confidence about them when they go abroad, and that they need one win to remove that block.

It is this elusive win that has finally come India's way -- immediately after a spectacular home win against the Aussies. And it has come at a time when the team is on a rebuilding exercise, finding fresh young talent (Harbhajan, Nehra, Das to name just three) and fine-tuning the existing personnel (the upping of Laxman to three, and Dravid coming in at six for instance).

John Wright made an informal comment, just before the team left for Zimbabwe. "The lads need to win there," he said, "because it will put them in the right frame of mind for South Africa later in the year."

Significantly, the first thing the Indian team did as Tendulkar and Das ran the winning run was line the players' balcony to applaud. And the second thing was to turn around, to where John Wright was standing in the background, and line up to shake his hand.