India fought back admirably after being dismissed for 189 to beat the West Indies by 20 runs in Cuttack on Wednesday and take a 2-0 lead in the four-match series.
After Dinesh Karthick and Ajit Agarkar rallied the team from a precarious position with fighting knocks of 63 and 40 respectively, Ramesh Powar (3-42) and Sachin Tendulkar (2-25) turned the tide India's way with their teasing spin, as the West Indies were dismissed for 169.
Shivnaraine Chanderpaul (66) and Dwayne Bravo (31) were the only West Indies batsmen to offer resistance as the innings folded in 48.2 overs.
India innings
After the feast, the famine: a batting lineup that two days ago gorged on an absolute belter failed to summon up the nous to accumulate in inimical conditions.
Grant, at the outset, that the pitch at the Barabati Stadium, Cuttack, is a disgrace - low, slow, with a magic maze of cracks that made the ball scoot around like someone was jerking its strings; there is still no real explanation for batsman after batsman falling to soft dismissals.
Gautam Gambhir began the slide in the third over. Ian Bradshaw's delivery was off target, short and going to leg. Gambhir tried the flick, got the edge and Dinesh Ramdhin did the rest (4/11; 6/1 India).
Sourav Ganguly seemed to have figured out that this was not a pitch to blast the ball around on; he started his scoring with a checked push for a single, and used similar pushes as his preferred scoring shots.
In the 6th over, the southpaw got a life, courtesy of the umpire, when he looked to run Jerome Taylor down to fine leg, got the edge and looked mighty relieved when the umpire resisted the vociferous appeal.
While Rahul Dravid, back at the number three slot, started off with a stream of fours, Ganguly waited till the 8th over before finding the boundary: Jerome Taylor banged one in that sat up and begged for the treatment; the batsman obliged, using nifty footwork to make room and slap it over the covers.
In the next over, though, he was gone: Daren Powell's was short on middle and leg, Ganguly attempted to work it off his hips and managed only to play it into the hands of short midwicket. It appeared as if the batsman had played the shot a touch too early, not making allowance for the slowness of the ball off the deck (13/25; 35/2 India).
Sachin Tendulkar lasted for all of five unconvincing deliveries. The sixth ball he faced was a Powell off cutter in the channel, that Tendulkar tried to flick on the on but managed only to put up the simplest of catches to mid on (0/6; 35/3).
Dravid and Dinesh Karthick, upped all the way to number five in the lineup, looked to be batting the team out of a hole when the former fell, to the first wicket-taking delivery of the Indian innings.
Powell produced the perfect slower ball - very well disguised, on the very full length; Dravid was foxed into playing down the wrong line and early at that, to be beaten and bowled (22/34; 46/4).
The conditions were clearly not to Mahendra Singh Dhoni's liking and predictably, the keeper-batsman perished cheap. Dwayne Smith's delivery was on the slow side on off; Dhoni leaned forward and managed only to scoop it back to the bowler - another instance of a batsman making no allowance for the slowness of the ball off the deck (6/19; 66/5).
It was not the ideal time for Joginder Singh to make a debut as an all-rounder. The six deliveries the all-rounder faced wasn't enough to provide any sort of indication of his batting skills. Powell took him out with a fullish delivery just outside off, that the debutant swatted at with no foot movement whatever; there was a gap wide enough to drive a truck through and the ball snaked through to disrupt the stumps (1/6; 69/6).
Chris Gayle, debuting as captain for the West Indies in the absence of Brian Lara, must have begun feeling around this point that leading a side in a limited overs game was a walk in the park.
Harbhajan Singh eschewed his natural game, and showed some intent to stick around and keep Karthick company. Defense, though, is not the offie's strong suit; Bravo cleaned him up with a straight ball on fuller length that had the batsman pushing tentatively inside the line; the ball slid past the edge to hit off (6/30; 90/6).
Dinesh Karthick, meanwhile, batted on a totally different track from the rest. Working out very early that hitting through the line in front of the wicket could pose problems on a track where every other ball tended to stop, Karthick took to working the ball behind the stumps on either side, and square of the wicket, staying back as much as he could and playing the ball very late.
It was just sense, and application, and it mocked the rated names that had gone before. No respecter of persons, he seemed to see nothing particularly threatening in the bowling of Powell - 21 of the 27 runs the bowler conceded in his first spell of 7-4-27-4 were off the bat of Karthick, including three clean-struck fours.
Ajit Agarkar, too, batted with seaming ease, biding his time for the most part, lining up those deliveries he felt he could hit, and giving them the treatment - not least the stroke he played in the 37th over, when Bravo tried one good length slower ball too many and the batsman, with a casual foray onto the front foot, picked it up and clubbed it to the long on boundary.
Given the situation in which the team was when they got together, it was a remarkable effort for Agarkar and Karthick to stitch together the 50 of their partnership in just 40 deliveries.
Karthick ended the 40th over with a stroll down the track, to pick Taylor from middle and leg and whip over square leg; India, down and seemingly out at 90/6 after 30 overs, looked to have the wind in its sails on 151/7 at the end of 40, having put on 61 runs during that ten over phase.
The second ball of the 41st over saw the end of Karthick, however. Bradshaw bowled a slower one on leg, whipping his fingers over the seam to get it to cut. Karthick stayed back, looking to run it down to third man but was beaten by the change down in pace (63/87; 152/8).
The young reserve keeper has developed a penchant for rearguard acts; the one he played here, walking in with the score on 35/3 in the 11th over, was a beauty even by the standards he has set himself.
Shortly after, Ramesh Powar let down his Mumbai team-mate. Rather than look to keep his end going, Powar aimed an almighty swish at yet another slower ball from Bravo, playing way too early and paying for it (5/10; 163/9).
The Windies bowlers, in the second half of the Indian innings, appeared to lose the plot; it was almost as if they expected the remaining batsmen to fold in the fashion of the top half and when they did not, the bowlers found themselves clueless.
That said, even bad bowling has to be cashed in - and following the departure of Karthik, Agarkar took charge, nudging the singles and, whenever length and line afforded, targeting the boundaries with some clean strikes.
The last four wickets had more than doubled the output of the first six, and it looked like India would, improbably, bat out the full 50 overs when an attempt to sneak a single in the 49th over ended in disaster. Agarkar attempted to race Bravo to the business end, after Zaheer Khan mishit a delivery and saw it squirt out on the on side; Bravo though proved the quicker, and India ended its innings on 189 (Agarkar 40/47; Zaheer Khan 7 not out off 16).
20 wides spoke to the erratic lines the Windies bowlers sent down; unlike Lara, Gayle seemed more laid back, less inclined to haul up his bowlers when they erred.
The Indian total is a good 50 runs short of safe, even on this up-and-down track and absent a sensational opening spell, the visitors should have no real problems squaring the series. Take two, three wickets early, though, and with two spinners operating on a pedestrian track, the second half could still provide surprises.
In passing, it seemed a rather strange decision by Dravid to bat first after winning the toss. Granting the wicket is not going to get any better, India did opt for a second spinner, we are in January and it is highly likely there will be dew during the second session of the day-night fixture, and chances are gripping the ball could be a problem.
West Indies innings
You don't defend 189 runs, you can only attack in the hope of getting the opposition bowled out for less - and to their credit, that is what the Indians did in the second half of the game, in relentless fashion.
The West Indies would have looked to debutant skipper Chris Gayle to knock a hefty chunk off the ask before the ball softened, and that seemed to be his intent when, to the first ball of the innings, Gayle stayed crease bound and flicked Ajit Agarkar off his pads for a boundary.
That shot - more importantly, Gayle's penchant for staying back - was going to be problematic, however, on a pitch where the ball had a marked tendency to keep low. And the danger was apparent as early as the first ball of the second over. Ajit Agarkar bowled that one at pace, just shy of length and on off and middle. Gayle again stayed back, looking to push off his pads but was beaten as the ball straightened to take the pad.
There was some fuss made with the snickometer, but the replays clearly indicated the ball hitting the pad, then ricocheting on to the bat - no problems there, and Windies were 5/1 (Gayle 5/5).
Shivnaraine Chanderpaul, digging deep and playing along very straight lines to negate the pitch, and Devon Smith settled down against probing seam from Zaheer and Agarkar.
The Indians, during this phase, once again missed opportunities thanks to a chronic inability to hit the stumps - the calling by both batsmen was uncertain, but while the ground fielding stayed sharp, the men manning the cordon repeatedly missed run out chances, worryingly, by much more than the proverbial whisker.
On the plus side, the fields were interestingly set. To counter Chanderpaul, for instance, they had a gully, point, cover standing a touch wide, and a short cover for the uppish push - a cordon the batsman, confronting a stream of deliveries outside off, just could not pierce.
Ironically, it was a run-out that finally brought the wicket. In the 15th over, Chanderpaul ran a delivery outside off from Joginder Sharma behind point; the batsmen completed one, Smith wanted a second and was halfway down when his partner sent him back. Smith turned, slipped, landed on his butt and was out by half the length of the pitch when Dhoni collected the throw and took the bails off (14/46; 41/2).
Marlon Samuels never looked comfortable out in the middle, and Harbhajan Singh accounted for him in his opening over. The delivery was tossed right up on middle and off, Samuels pushed forward with hard hands and the inner edge flew true to Gambhir at forward short leg (1/9; 42/3).
Joginder Singh, on debut, was competent without being particularly impressive. The tall, strapping all-rounder bowls at speeds under the 130k mark, tending to be on the short side of length more often than not; at that pace, on a truer wicket, he would have been easy meat. Even here, he was going at four an over when Dravid took him out and brought on his second regular spinner.
Chanderpaul and Dwayne Bravo were mounting a recovery, with the latter playing aggressor, chancing his arm on the sweep and thumping anything that was length or better. In the 25th over, he rocked back to a short ball from Ramesh Powar and swung him high over midwicket, and it seemed that he was in a mood to take the game away.
Where Harbhajan is a percentage bowler, Powar is the traditional, old-world off-spinner, willing to take a pounding and, if necessary, buy his wickets. Such a purchase was evidently his intent against Bravo - an over after being thumped for the first six of the match, he tossed one right up in the batsman's face. Bravo went forward, defending with hard hands in front of his pads; the delivery turned, took the inside edge and Gambhir at short square was in business again (31/33; 85/4). The 43-run partnership was beginning to look dangerous in context of the smallish target, when Powar broke through.
Runako Morton faced three deliveries in the same over of Powar's, without much of clue what either he, or the ball, was doing; the fourth delivery did for him when Powar again tossed one up, very wide of off. Morton elected to let it go without really covering the stumps, the ball turned back a mile and clipped the top of off (0/4; 85/5).
Though the Indians continued to attack, with two, often three, close catchers for the two spinners, the lack of runs was increasingly proving a problem: despite losing wickets, the West Indies were pulling ahead on the chase.
After 10 overs, West Indies had made 26/1 (India 35/2); after 20, 53/3 (India 61/4); after 25, 80/3 (76/6), after 30, 104/5 (90/6) and after 35, 123/5 (111/7). Also adding to the problems was the fact that Harbhajan Singh, who had bowled an economical, at times threatening, spell, was in danger of bowling out (9-2-29-1).
Dravid took his lead offie off, and brought Sachin Tendulkar on for his assorted all-sorts, in the 34th. Chanderpaul finessed the bowler to the fine leg fence, to bring up a 50 that had anchored the chase and ensured that it stayed on track, failures at the opposite end notwithstanding.
Dwayne Smith took over from Bravo as the engine for the chase, while Chanderpaul focused on buttoning one end down; the two racked up 50 for the 6th wicket off just 60 runs and seemed to be taking control of the game.
A rush of blood did for Smith. Tendulkar bowled a long hop; Smith, who in the previous over had swung Powar for a huge six over midwicket, hitting against the turn looking for an encore, and managed only to hole out to deep midwicket (25/25; 139/6).
An uncertain Dinesh Ramdhin, and a thoroughly composed Chanderpaul headed into the straight with Windies 148/6 at the end of 40, needing 42 from the last 10. The batsmen merely needed to pick them off in singles, but Ramdhin perished in the 41st, in a misguided attempt to hit his way through his troubles.
Powar tossed up an invitation, with the last ball of his final over Ramdhin came charging down the track, was beaten in flight and could only watch as the ball spun onto the stumps; had the ball not hit, Ramdhin would still have been stumped by half a mile (6/16; 151/7).
From there on it was all cat and mouse, with no telling who was which. At the end where Powar had just ended a high quality spell, Dravid brought Harbhajan on to bowl the one over he had left; Chanderpaul settled into ostentatious defense, clearly signaling that he was focused on ensuring the spinner ended his spell without doing any damage, never mind that it pushed the ask to upwards of five (37 needed off 42).
Tendulkar bowled a two run over (44) that pushed the equation to the edge: 35 off 36. Agarkar, in the 45th, contributed seven runs including an untimely wide, with both batsmen working him around quite easily (28 off 30).
Tendulkar forced India back into the game in the 46th. The third ball of the over was short on length, outside off stump; Ian Bradshaw thought he saw easy pickings and rocked back to force square. On a pitch where the ball was slowing down visibly off the deck, all he managed was to slap a simple catch to Gambhir at point (2/14; 163/8).
One run and a wicket raised the ask to 27/24; Dravid jettisoned Agarkar and turned to the steadier Zaheer. And yet again, pressure worked havoc; Chanderpaul ran out his second partner for the day. He had steered one to third man and scampered the single; he set off for a second and when Darren Powell was fully committed to the run, sent him back - awfully late to beat the throw (1/5; 166/9).
23/18 when Tendulkar took the ball in the 48th, and the West Indies with just one wicket left were in no position to force the pace; the game effectively ended here, with the bowlers needing merely to bowl steady lines and lengths and shut out the game.
Tendulkar did his bit with just two runs in the over; the ask became 21 off 12 and it all proved too much for Chanderpaul. Having held his nerve from the first over on, through all the swings in fortune through the chase, he finally lost his cool, aimed a wild slog at Zaheer Khan and was bowled (67/124; 169 all out) to give India the win by 20 runs.
India owed the win in large part to Karthik, Agarkar and the tail, who more than doubled the contribution of the batsmen and, more to the point, gave themselves something to bowl at.
Not a fluent, authoritative win, not by any yardstick - but the positive the team can take away from here is that unlike in outings in the recent past, the team held together under pressure, kept its collective nerve, and - throwing lapses apart - kept up the pressure with the ball and in the field.
It's a start - and there are two more games in this series to build on it.
