India mess it up in Mumbai

This professor once came to class and read out an essay, then invited his students to criticise it. The students panned the essay, mercilessly -- and deservedly.

When they had all spoken their piece, the professor said: "Well, I wrote that essay!" Shocked silence. The prof continues: "What is more, I worked hard on it, to ensure that I didn't omit a single mistake I could possibly make, ensuring that every element of bad writing was present. It took me six hours. Now could you please tell me how you guys manage to get the same results in just half an hour every day?"

When this Indian team plays cricket, you are reminded of that professor, and that bunch of students. Time and again, over the three and a half hours that they spend in the field, they manage to ensure that not one mistake it is possible to make in one day internationals is omitted.

If they still win occasionally, those wins come on the days when the opposition makes even more mistakes.

Check out today's bowling performance, on a track affording pace and bounce and turn, against England: Dropped catches? Check. Misfields? Present and accounted for. Bad field placing? But of course -- how about Javagal Srinath of all people at point? Wrong line and length? Step forward Ajit Agarkar, hello Anil Kumble. Bowling changes? 174/8, the tail to be blown away, and a Srinath ambles around in the outfield while the likes of Hemang Badani strut their stuff, such as it is. Forgetting to take singles? We have converted that into a fine art. So did we leave anything out, professor?

Nadeem Memon, curator of the Wankhede Stadium, predictably produced what is becoming his forte -- a hard wicket with some grass and something for everybody: bounce and seam movement for the pacemen, bounce and turn for spinners, nice even pace for batsmen ready to play their shots.

England went in with an unchanged eleven, while India decided that Harbhajan Singh had been given enough "rest" and hastily brought him back for Sarandeep Singh. Nasser Hussain won the toss and opted to bat first -- probably on the theory that in a game that has virtually been turned into a final, putting runs on the board first is always less pressurising than chasing, and also to take advantage of the sea breeze that sets in later in the day.

The game got off to a frenetic start. The very first ball of the innings, from Srinath, kicked and seamed away, Marcus Trescothick shaped to cut and was beaten by the extra bounce and Hemang Badani, at backward point, dived to his natural side, the left, got his hands to the ball but failed to cling on.

That ball set the pace for the over, as Srinath beat Nick Knight time and again. Off ball five, Knight survived a confident appeal for caught behind. But ball six was more of the same -- good length, bounce, late movement off the deck, and Knight could do no more than hang his bat out for Ajay Ratra to snaffle the thick edge (England 1/1).

Ajit Agarkar produced a fiery first over, with his home crowd egging him on. But in his second over, gave indications of things to come as he drifted to leg and allowed Nasser Hussain to flick him away for an onside four.

His third over, the sixth of the innings 6th over, contained another leg side offering, and one short and wide of off, both gratefully accepted by Hussain. But even this was a warm-up for his fourth over. Which started off with one so wide, it went down to the fence to give England five runs. A quick single was taken off the second ball -- so Agarkar ran down the pitch, picked up, and heaved a throw in the general direction of the wicket though the batsman was home. That throw was stopped by the advertising hoardings at long on. Then came two wides, one on the off side, one on the leg. And the over ended with a nice half volley for Trescothick to despatch. Undaunted, Ganguly gave the bowler yet another over, and Agarkar managed to find ways to gift 10 more runs.

Thanks to the Mumbaikar's profligacy, England raced to 70/1 at the end of 10 overs -- a score that included nine fours and 19 singles.

Srinath had created early pressure (in his fourth over, he again found Trescothick's edge but this time, Sehwag at second slip failed to get down low enough quick enough to snare the edge). Agarkar had ensured that the pressure swung right back on the bowling side -- to the point where Anil Kumble in his first over (the 13th of the innings) tried to contain by bowling tight and fast, and ended up with a stream of wides.

England's headlong rush ended when Saurav Ganguly brought himself on in the 14th over. Hussain's eyes lit up at a rank long hop, he aimed a pull with such savagery that it seemed he was aiming to deposit the ball in the floating restaurant off the coastline, ended up overhitting it, and Harbhajan at deep backward square held a well judged catch (41 off 38, England 88/2 in 12.2 at 7.14 per over).

Trescothick, with two lives under his belt, meanwhile continued to make the Indians pay. A stroll down the track in the 14th over ended with a Kumble delivery being deposited behind the sightscreen to bring up the 100, and in the next over, the opener brought up his own 50 (42 balls) with a spanking cover drive. At the end of 15 overs, England had raced to 107/1

Michael Vaughan was content, for the most part, to run the ball around the park and let his partner do the really dirty work. Trescothick, the bit firmly between his teeth, showed no signs of noticing that the field restrictions were off, as he continued to blast the ball around the park. At the end of 20 overs, England was 142/2 -- and that score included 14 fours, one five, one six and, significantly, 43 singles. The 150 of the innings came off just 126 balls (46 balls for the first 50, 36 for the second, 44 for the third).

It was in the 23rd over that Vaughan forgot his anchoring role, and charged Ganguly's first ball -- one wide enough to beat his flailing bat and allow Ratra to pull off a stumping (16 off 27, 65-run partnership at 6.61, England 153/3 in 22.1).

Harbhajan Singh had gone for runs when he was first brought on. It did not seem to matter that those runs had come primarily off edges, and because the field was not set to capitalise on those edges -- runs came, so Harbhajan had to be taken off.

He only got the ball back in the 28th over. The first ball was flighted high enough to tempt Thorpe to come down the track. The loop had the batsman misjudging, the ball hit the deck and turned rapidly away to beat the bat, and Ratra did superbly well to go a long way to his left, collect, then reverse direction to whip the bails off (6 off 17, England 172/4).

Ball three of the same over was, again, flighted above the eye level of the batsman. This time, it was Trescothick who lost sight of the ball, and pushed vaguely to get the leading edge for Harbhajan to dive and hold, ending an innings marked by complete domination of the bowling (95 off 80, 173/5 England).

It would have been three in the over, but for some more of that awful umpiring Hussain keeps nattering on about. Andrew Flintoff pushed vaguely at a top spinner, got the thick edge onto his pad for short square to hold -- and the umpire turned the appeal down.

From then on, it was Harbhajan Singh on centre-stage. On a pitch that afforded him bounce and turn, Harbhajan slowed his pace right down, took to flighting and looping high, used the doosra as variation rather than stock ball, and looked completely unplayable. Collingwood got a sharp off break, drove desperately at it, and Sehwag at midwicket dived headlong to hold as the ball flew off the thick inside edge (174/6 England).

Later in the over (the 30th), the bowler produced the doosra, just enough back of length to make it kick. Ashley Giles pushed at it like someone refusing a second helping of poison, got the outside edge, and Sehwag -- by now at slip -- held (174/7). At the end of the over, Harbhajan had taken four wickets in 11 balls for two runs, and was desperately unlucky not to have got Flintoff as his fifth.

James Foster and Andrew Flintoff gritted their way through what was developing into a brilliant spell of off spin bowling. And it was here that India's fielding policy began to raise eyebrows -- with seven down for 174, you would reckon the field would be right up, but no. Though two close fielders remained in place, the rest were pushed back to defend the boundaries.

A wierd sight. And a wierder sound -- that of television commentators going "India won't mind the singles at this stage".

The singles India "didn't mind" and which England gratefully accepted, pushed the score along -- to 205 -- 31 invaluable runs -- before Harbhajan Singh in his last over got Foster to push another of his well-flighted off breaks back down the track, to complete his 5-fer. Coming on at a time when India was dead in the water, the off-spinner produced an outstanding spell to single-handedly turn the game, ending with a spell of 10-1-43-5.

With only Caddick and Gough left in the hut, you would think India would have turned to Srinath to finish it off. Not so -- spin had got wickets, you see, so spin it had to be. Tendulkar, Kumble, Badani, anyone else fancy a bowl?

It took five overs of that stuff before Tendulkar got one to turn enough for a Caddick slog to be mishit down midwicket's gullet. The diet of slow spin continued, as did the accumulation of runs through singles. England got to 229/9 in 45 (192/7 in 35, 210/8 in 40), with Flintoff and Gough focussing on playing through the overs and India focussing on "saving the boundaries" and "not minding too much about the singles" -- the field being ridiculously well spread even for Darren Gough.

Batting with sound commonsense, Gough and Flintoff kept taking the runs on offer, capitalised on the occasional bad ball, and turned the game right round. The 250 came in the 49th over, until Srinath in the last over of the innings had Flintoff misreading, and mishitting, a well-disguised slower ball straight up in the air for long off to hold (40 off 50 Flintoff, 255 all out England). The last wicket partnership had produced 37 runs -- a record on this ground. Pertinently, Gough (who, much to his surprise and delight was gifted a couple of bats by Tendulkar this morning) had managed 8 singles, Flintoff 14. As your friendly neighbourhood commentator would say, "India won't mind those."

India yet again got off the traps in a hurry through the scratch pair of Sehwag and Tendulkar. Rather surprisingly, Hussain gave the new ball to Darren Gough (remember that bit about winning when the other side makes more mistakes) rather than the taller, pacier Flintoff on a deck where hitting the deck at speed produced bounce and seam.

The fun and games began in the third over, when Tendulkar got into position so quick you thought he had read Caddick's mind, and pulled a slightly short ball savagely over midwicket. Sehwag meanwhile had taken a sighter by square driving a Gough delivery for four. In the 5th over, he freed his arms against another short one outside off, this time from Caddick, and slammed it high over point for a square cut six -- the ball would have been called wide if the batsman hadn't hunted it down (35/0 in 5).

For all his ability, Tendulkar at times falls into the trap of deciding exactly how he is going to bat. Of late, he appears to have decided that he will leave much of the savagery to Sehwag, and get cute with the ball, using delicate dabs and flicks and stuff. Doesn't matter how much talent you have -- trying to run a ball down to third man, in the initial overs against a hard new ball with two slips in place, is not good percentage. For the second time in two games, however, Tendulkar tried just that shot. And for the second time in two games, got out edging to Foster behind the stumps, Gough the bowler doing the celebratory jig (12 off 18, India 36/1).

Ganguly played out an early maiden off Caddick. Strangely, England missed a bet, never once using the short throat ball as a weapon against the Indian skipper. And Ganguly, after getting his eye in, capitalised. There is a tactic he has made peculiarly his own -- moving way down leg side so all three stumps are visible, and at the same time, advancing down the track. You've seen him do this times out of mind (remember his assaults against Pollock in South Africa?), but damned if you can figure out how he manages such contradictory movements.

Here, he provided enough examples of that ability. In the 11th over, a couple of such shimmies resulted in fours. In the 13th over, he went one better, hitting the long ball he alone in the side hits with such ease, to deposit Caddick way deep into the stands behind the sightscreen.

Later in the same over, Sehwag blasted Caddick behind point for four more -- but just when it looked like the tall seamer was deep into a personal nightmare, Sehwag fell. Like Tendulkar, to the same mistake he made in the previous game -- an attempt to blast one on the rise over mid on resulting in the mishit finding the fielder (31 off 29, 88/2 India, 52 off 48 the partnership).

Ashley Giles got the ball in the 15th over -- and Dinesh Mongia, who through this tournament has impressed with his completely nerveless, ice-cool demeanour, got off the blocks with a delicate leg glance, followed by a dance down the track to hoist the left arm spinner over mid on.

India had coasted to 102/2 in 15 overs. A very good score -- but it still made you wonder, wistfully, just what could be possible if the batsmen remembered to take the occasional single. A statistic: at the end of 15 overs (90 legit deliveries), India had played out as many as 58 dot balls, and taken just 18 singles, besides 10 fours and three sixes. By way of contrast, England after 20 overs (142/2) had played 55 dot balls (out of 120 deliveries), but taken 43 singles to complement their 14 boundaries, one five and one six. Care to wonder just what the team's run rate would be, if they complemented their ability to find the boundaries with some judicious running between wickets?

The 25th over saw Ganguly finally take on Hussain's challenge. The England skipper had pulled the field in, challenging his counterpart to try and hit Giles over the top. In the last game, Ganguly had hit three sixes, but then holed out trying to duplicate the shot. Here, he resisted the urge, till the first ball of the 25th over produced a trademark dance down the pitch, running outside the line of the ball to hoist it over wide long on for the six that brought up his second successive 50 (64 balls).

Hussain's biggest problem was his bowling. Caddick's first spell of 7 had gone for 51, for the wicket of Sehwag. Gough had gone for 28 in his first four. Giles had been taken apart by both Dinesh Mongia and Ganguly (37 in 6). Only Flintoff -- count a Hussain mistake here in not tossing him the ball first up -- had bowled superbly to go for 19 in 6. Hence, the problem -- three of four lead bowlers were proving too costly for comfort.

Mongia and Ganguly, in the circumstances, batted with calm commonsense. In Delhi, over-ambition had caused Ganguly's demise and sparked a collapse. Here, the two batsmen kept talking to each other constantly, waited for the bad deliveries to spank, and focussed on staying there. The 150 came up in the 28th over, at 5.52 rpo.

The 30th over produced a wicket against the run of play. Dinesh Mongia had been batting with calm good sense, but in the 29th over, Darren Gough rattled him with superbly disguised slower deliveries that spun away from the southpaw and beat the bat. In the next over, Mongia came down the track to Michael Vaughan, then for no apparent reason checked himself and changed the intended hit into a push, was beaten by turn away from the bat, and easily stumped by Foster (35 off 56, 155/3 India, 67-run partnership at 4.10).

Vaughan (first spell: 8-1-29-1) had been bowling very well, concentrating on line and length, turning the ball off the helpful deck, and keeping a tight leash on the batsmen. At the other end Gough, always good with the older ball, produced a very tight spell, keeping the runs down with some superb changes of pace. The run rate slowed to a trickle, the ask mounted and so did the pressure on the batsmen, and India's reluctance to run singles began to take a toll now (32 overs, 192 legit deliveries, 124 dot balls and just 50 singles, where England had 43 singles inside the first 20 overs itself).

Ganguly relieved the pressure in his favoured fashion -- taking a calculated risk to go down the leg side and simultaneously, down the track to slam a Gough slower ball way over wide long on for six, the first boundary in 8.5 overs. Kaif celebrated by going on his knee, to the first ball of Vaughan's next over, and swinging to the midwicket fence (India 174/3 in 33.1).

The innings progression tells you just where India began to pull away. England after 10 had made 70/1 to India,s 62/1; after 15 it was 107/2 to 102/2; after 20 it was 142/2 to 118/2; after 25 the scores were England 166/3 to 143/2; after 30 it was 174/7 to 155/3. That spell of Harbhajan's had halted England's runaway scoring -- and at that point, India began to gradually narrow the gap.

The first ball of the 36th over was a low full toss -- and Ganguly hit one of the hardest shots in the book, lifting the ball as it died on him, over wide long on for a six. But in an action replay of Delhi, the Indian skipper fell just when he looked to have the chase under control, this time trying to swing Giles down to fine leg in the 37th over, managing only a faint touch of the back of the bat for the ball to roll onto the stumps and dislodge the bails. That was a desperately unlucky way to end what was easily Ganguly's best knock since the ODIs in South Africa (80 off 99, India 191/4 in 36.5).

In Delhi, the skipper's exit had sparked Kaif to emulation. Here, the story was repeated, though not as quickly. The 200 came up in the 39th over -- but the last ball of the 40th over saw Kaif losing it. A totally needless hoik -- a typical shot of inexperience in a situation that did not call for the spectacular -- off a Flintoff slower ball put the ball high to present point with a simple catch (20 off 36, 206/5 in 40, needing 50 off 60).

The wicket put England in familiar territory -- two new batsmen at the crease and under pressure, and everything to be gained by line and length bowling and desperate fielding to push the ask back up. The 44th over could have sealed India's fate -- Ajay Ratra swung Caddick straight to Vaughan at square leg -- and parallels with Delhi continued, as Vaughan dropped a sitter, the score at the time 217/5.

Vaughan however made amends in the next over, his last, when he had Ajay Ratra sweeping a flighted ball straight to Ashley Giles at midwicket (8 off 16 balls, 224/6 in the 45th). At the end of 45 overs, India needed 32 off 30 deliveries with four in hand -- and the point about not consistently taking singles throughout the innings came into sharp relief. Firstly, singles in the middle of the innings would have ensured, in tandem with the big hits, that India was never under pressure. And secondly, it is their inability to think 'single' that time and again causes batsmen to go for the big shots and lose their wickets in a heap, coming to the business end of a chase.

Caddick in the 46th over ensured that Agarkar did not perform heroics on his home ground -- a regulation delivery to a tailender, short, quick, and on off saw Agarkar unable to get out of line, the edge held overhead by Foster (0 off 2, India 224/7).

Badani raced between wickets like a hare, on one occasion sneaking one as Harbhajan swung and missed and before Foster cold collect. But the ask was still over a run a ball, and Harbhajan off the last ball of the 48th attempted to reduce the deficit with a swing on the on side, but managed only to put it up for point to hold (238/8, needing 18 off 12).

Badani batted with more application, and ability, than he has displayed in the last few outings, a straight four off Gough in the 49th over reducing the deficit somewhat. And showcased an ability not too many people notice about him -- between wickets, he has the footspeed of Michael Bevan at his fastest (15 singles, 2 twos in a score of 27). After 49, India were 245/8, still needing 11 off the last six.

Kumble and Badani did their damndest, with frenetic hitting and desparate running. But a brilliant piece of fielding by Andrew Flintoff off his own bowling, collecting the throw from the deep and throwing down the stumps on the dive as the batsmen attempted to sneak a bye, saw Kumble depart (India 250/9, needing six off the last two balls). Srinath walked across his stumps to try and flick the 5th ball of the 50th over to leg. Flintoff got it fast, and full, Srinath missed, Flintoff hit -- and England with a five run win had squared the series 3-3.

After the defeat in Delhi, Ganguly pointed out that the middle order failed to complete a win. Today, after seeing his team snatch defeat from the jaws of a certain win, he said pretty much the same thing.

Sorry, Saurav -- what has let the team down, time and again, is those 22 yards from wicket to wicket, and the chronic inability of every single batsman, from number one to number 11, to cover that distance and earn a single. You keep telling us who lost it for us -- the bowlers, the middle order, the openers, the fielders. For a change, try asking not who, but why. Then consider this: On the day, batsmen 1-11 took 86 singles in a score of 250, but played out 179 dot balls. And lost by five runs.

When Saurav, and his side are done feeling sorry for themselves, maybe they could try listening to coach John Wright: "Get the basics right."

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