India scrape through in Chennai

A batting beauty is seductive -- the team winning the toss thinks, ah, bat first, pile up 300, maybe more, and we've got the game won.

Which is true enough. The trouble, though, is, there is a tendency to try and blast every ball out of the park, in preference to building a platform before launching the assault. And next thing you know, the wickets are going down in a heap, and the 300 you were salivating about at start of play begins to look like a mirage.

England discovered that essential truth on Friday at the M A Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk. As batting beauties go, this track would have been a shoo-in for Miss Universe. This was the sort of track on which Pakistan made 327/5 on one memorable occasion, powered by a world record 194 by Saeed Anwar, and India responded with 292.

Nasser Hussain immediately opted for first strike when the coin flipped for him.

England kept the side that won the second ODI at Cuttack -- never mind that it seemed a touch unfair on Graham Thorpe and Andrew Caddick. India made the one change, forced on it by Sourav Ganguly's absence through a hamstring niggle. Sanjay Bangar, who opens both the batting and the bowling for his Ranji Trophy side Railways, stepped into the breach to become India's 141st ODI player. And Kumble, with 284 ODIs under his belt, finally got a chance to lead the national team out.

Javagal Srinath began with two wide balls in succession and the carnival was on. Marcus Trescothick square-drove Agarkar, then came dancing down to smash Srinath over mid-on. A slashing cover-drive off Agarkar was followed by an immaculate cut off Srinath -- and England, on 28/0 at the end of five overs, seemed set for a big one.

The scoreboard, though, presented a lopsided picture. There was no help to be had from the deck, the ball did nothing in the air thanks to the stillness of mid-afternoon, bowling was a thankless job and yet Srinath and, more so, Agarkar used variations of pace and the one permitted bouncer well to ensure that England's openers didn't completely run away with the game.

Nick Knight has had a poor run thus far in this series, with 0 in Calcutta and 13 in Cuttack. Finding himself on a good batting track, the opener attempted to capitalize and, taking his cue from his aggressive partner, came dancing down the track to lift Srinath over the leg side. The slower ball was cleverly disguised and Knight managed only to slog it high for Dinesh Mongia to prove yet again that when it comes to the right technique for taking high catches, he has it down pat (Knight 10 off 23, England 42/1 in 6.4 overs).

At the other end, Trescothick batted as though the gods had appeared to him in a dream and promised him everlasting batting life. Eighteen Srinath deliveries had been blasted for 19 runs, while Agarkar had gone for 17 off 16 -- those runs including five fours and 11 singles. But hubris, in the form of Agarkar, struck in the 10th over when the seamer bent his back and banged one down just short of full length. Playing the length, Trescothick swayed back looking to run it to third man, but the added bounce Agarkar extracted with his extra effort defeated the shot and caught the glove through to Ajay Ratra (36 off 34 and England 53/2).

Nasser Hussain walked in to the sort of applause that Chennai-ites reserve for a local boy. And played the sort of shot you see yourself playing in your worst nightmares -- the kind that comes after, say, a particularly heavy meal of prawns. He had spent the better part of six overs being a mere spectator, facing only three deliveries in all that time. And then Sanjay Bangar, strictly military medium (while on the subject, would one of you guys out there have a clue about the origin of the phrase 'military medium'?) at his best, came on in place of Srinath in the 13th over.

Without giving himself time to read the bowler and the track, Hussain leant back to the second ball of Bangar's international career, aiming to slam him over long on. The ball didn't have the pace to come on to the bat, Hussain ended up hitting too hard too early, and managed to give Harbhajan Singh, at mid-on, one of the easiest catches he will ever take (Hussain 1 off 4, and England 61/3).

From this point on, Anil Kumble took centrestage with a display of aggressive captaincy. Though Paul Collingwood and Michael Vaughan have been England's most consistent batsmen in the one-day series till date, Kumble as stand-in captain kept the field right up. Rather than place his men on the edge of the thirty-yard circle -- a position that allows batsmen the luxury of pushing and running -- Kumble brought them a good 10 yards further in, denying the singles and forcing the batsmen to try and make things happen.

Collingwood, man of the match in Cuttack, felt the squeeze. In the 18th over, Harbhajan Singh floated one right up, drawing the batsman forward. Collingwood played for the off break, the ball went the other way and found the edge. Ajay Ratra couldn't move across quickly enough to take, but V V S Laxman, whose catching in the first two games has been way below par, did well this time to stay low, keep his eye on the ball and take low to his left (Collingwood 13, England 90/4).

Kumble held himself back till the 19th over, then came on to replace Sanjay Bangar who had gone for 20 in three overs for the wicket of Hussain. Andrew Flintoff, batting-wise, has been on the skids throughout this India tour. Today merely continued the trend, as Kumble floated a top spinner up around off for Flintoff to push the tamest of return catches to the bowler (8 off 13, England 62/5).

With half the side back in the hut, India moved in -- literally -- for the kill. Boundary-riders were dispensed with, the field was further tightened, the spectators were treated to the unusual (by Indian standards) sight of two slips and a short square leg in place well beyond the halfway mark of the innings, the two spinners settled into an attacking line, and something had to give.

That something was Vaughan, who had been doing his best to hold the innings together. A Kumble top spinner outside off in the 29th over lured him into the cut, but the ball bounced higher than the batsman had looked for, the shot went in the air and Tendulkar, at point, slid in, then dived to hold a superb catch (Vaughan 43 off 59, England 125/6).

At this point, England after being 42/0 in the seventh over, had lost six wickets for just 83 runs in just under 22 overs -- all this, on a perfect batting track.

Ben Hollioake and Jeremy Snape then batted with the sort of calm good sense their betters had failed to show, settling down to the job of batting out overs and accumulating runs through deft pushes and nudges. Hollioake's innings was characterised by firm pushes in the V, and shots of conviction square of the wicket. Snape was the nudger, the hustler.

India around this period ran into a problem, with Harbhajan Singh having used up his overs (10-1-34-1) in the quest for quick wickets, Kumble having just two left (8-1-25-2), Srinath having a complete off day and Bangar not having the pace to hustle the batsmen and force errors.

Agarkar finally returned in the 44th over and struck at once. A very full length delivery saw Snape, who had batted sensibly till that point, aim a heave designed to deposit the ball over the square leg boundary. The ball was too full in length for the shot and ended up going under the flailing bat and crashing into middle stump, ending a partnership of 70 runs that helped haul England to a halfway decent position (38 off 60, 195/7).

The 46th over produced more of the same -- and again, Agarkar was the agent. This time, a quicker delivery forced Hollioake to mishit an attempted legside slog, the ball flaring off the toe of the bat for a simple catch to wide mid off (37 off 61, 202/8).

An over later, Agarkar -- who, on the day, bowled the sort of straight line from close to the stumps that gave birth to the 'you miss I hit' cliché, completed his sixth four-wicket haul (4/34) when yet another straight, full-length ball went under the wildly flailing bat of Darren Gough (216/9). And the last ball of the same over produced a run out, to end England's innings on 217 -- a score at least 60, even 70 short of what constitutes a challenging target on this deck.

England at the halfway stage had two things to rue -- first, that their top-order batsmen had completely wasted the opportunity of batting first on a placid track and second, that they had failed to even use their full quota of overs.

India on the field were a committed, charged-up side. The fielders were on their toes, the bowlers bowled to their field, the pressure was maintained throughout. And Kumble, quietly, unobtrusively, with a minimum of fuss, led from the front, using his bowling resources well, keeping his team on the boil and ensuring that England were never allowed to recover from the early blows.

In the second half, India needed 4.36 runs per over. England needed wickets -- quick ones, and plenty of them.

India got the runs -- at a crackling 8 per over in the first five, as Sachin Tendulkar went berserk with a display of arrogant, almost contemptuous, hitting. Gone was the finesse he has brought to his shot-selection in recent times. Today, he was content to pick the line, clench his muscles, and smack the ball wherever he fancied.

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. Virender Sehwag, opening in place of Ganguly, watched Tendulkar blaze away and when, occasionally, he got a ball or two to face, flattered the hell out of his partner by faithfully imitating his shots, especially the drives on the rise through cover. The combination smashed Gough out of the attack with 17 in an over.

Hoggard in the eighth over bowled one wide on off and Sehwag swatted at it with such vehemence, he seemed intent on cutting the ball in two. The excess effort induced the miscue, the ball flew to Snape at point, but with such power that the fielder just couldn't cling on.

Flintoff's arrival at the bowling crease slowed things down a touch (seven runs in his first four overs) as the tall, strapping bowler banged the ball down with enough vigour to make it kick off a length and make free-flowing shot play relatively difficult. This was alternated with a stream of deliveries in or around the blockhole. And yet, a blazing Sehwag straight drive brought up India's 53 -- off 54 balls (India 55/0 after 10 overs).

Content with having made an early statement, the openers then settled down to more sensible cricket. The 14th over, from Hoggard, saw Tendulkar break free again -- two immaculate square-drives off the front foot to perfectly good deliveries, then a one-handed swat to the midwicket boundary off a slower ball the batsman picked late but adjusted for, an on-driven single, and the over produced 13 runs, with Tendulkar moving to 50 off 44 deliveries.

The 100 came in the eighteenth over. Off the first ball of the nineteenth, Sehwag pulled a short one from Snape to the boundary to bring up his 51 off 57, then celebrated by lunging forward and swinging the next ball straight down the throat of wide and deep midwicket (107/1) -- to end the best opening stand seen thus far this series.

Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar throttled back and settled down to run accumulation. And then the wicket fell -- against the run of play. Jeremy Snape has throughout this series bowled slow enough to give snails a complex. Here, he seemed to dig deep and find even lower gears. You had to wonder what it was like for a batsman, to stand there waiting for a ball that never seems to get to you -- somewhat akin to John McEnroe's publicly expressed frustration when facing Ramesh Krishnan's serve, you would imagine.

Snape bowled one of those super-slow ones, Tendulkar attempted to whip it off his pads, missed, and was caught bang in front (68 off 79, and India 130/2 in the 27th over).

At that point, India needed just 87 runs off some 22 overs with eight wickets standing. A walk in the park or, more accurately, a romp on a belter of a track, you'd think. But this is the Indian team -- with its incredible ability to make the easiest task look difficult.

Laxman was sent in at number three to get a decent bat and work his way out of his form slump. The batsman took the brief so seriously that he forgot the tangential objective of actually winning this match and spent much of his time tapping the ball gently around the infield. Mongia, deprived of much of the strike, meanwhile picked up from where he had left off in his last two outings, batting with the calm assurance that is his characteristic.

The scoring rate dipped dramatically -- but given the measly target and the blistering start provided by the Tendulkar-Sehwag duo, that should not have been a cause of concern.

And then came the 36th over -- bowled by Matthew Hoggard. Ball three was the slower one and Laxman heaved at it, head high in the air, only to play all over it and get his off stump uprooted (26 off 53, India 165/3).

Hemang Badani took a single off the first ball he faced and Hoggard, for his fifth ball, slammed down a short one that was fiercely pulled by Mongia, high over midwicket, for a huge six. The next ball was angled across the lefthander on a full length and Mongia flashed into an airy drive, without getting his right foot across, and managed to tickle the edge through to Foster (21 off 26 balls, India 172/4).

The twin strikes appeared to have fired up Hoggard. In his next over, he produced a lifter off a length, bending his back to make that one kick. Debutant Sanjay Bangar, feeling the pressure, stood immobile in his crease and pushed at it to get the glove and handle through to first slip (174/5).

India could well have been out of it altogether when, off the last ball of the 39th over, Flintoff angled one across Hemang Badani. The batsman pushed at it, the ball found the edge, and Foster's desperate dive and clutch just failed to make a catch of it.

Ratra, for the second time this series, displayed an ice-cool temperament while Badani fought his way through his own nerves. The feature of the sixth wicket partnership, though, was an un-Indian felicity in running between wickets. Both batsmen are very quick on their feet and, most importantly, respond without hesitation to their partner's call. The drip-drip of quick singles and the occasional clubbed four when frustrated bowlers erred in line got India back out of the hole it had dug for itself.

England made one last-ditch attempt when Gough, so badly mistreated in his opening spell, came back for his third go-round and angled one across Badani through to Foster. Badani was out caught behind, though it was by no means clear if he had even managed to put bat to that beauty (Badani 12, India 201/6, still needing 17).

Seemingly fed up of all the confusion, Ratra (29 not out off 32) took matters into his own hands, producing a display of enterprising cricket to power India past the total and seal the four-wicket win. England can take cold comfort from the fact that they had only themselves to blame.

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