NEWS
STAT SHEET
DIARY
OTHER SPORTS
SLIDE SHOW
PEOPLE
DEAR REDIFF

Sachin carries India into the final

Prem Panicker

It was Sachin's 14th century. His third against Australia. His third in Sharjah. His highest in one day internationals. And perhaps his most crucial -- for it not only took India, against the odds, into the final of the Coca Cola cup, but also laid to rest a long standing complaint against Tendulkar, that while he blazes away at the start, he rarely bats on to finish the job he started.

Having said that, it seemed somewhat of a tragedy that a controversial dismissal ended his innings just when it looked like Tendulkar, having accomplished his first goal and single-handedly hauled India into the final, was taking a shot at actually winning what looked an un-winnable game.

It also seemed somewhat unfair to the New Zealanders, who after an indifferent start to the tournament, came back strongly to contest for a place in the final that they have been edged out on the basis of the net run rate. I don't know -- if tournament organisers didn't schedule games at the rate of one every other day, provision could be made for a playoff game in such situations, the teams tied on points facing each other for the final berth. But try telling that to tournament organisers who, these days, seem heading towards the day when they can schedule games at the rate of one a day.

Australia won the toss and elected to bat, bringing back the three rested players -- Fleming, Kasprowicz and Ponting.

And from the word go, it was obvious that Australia were hell bent on putting up the kind of score they could reckon was beyond the scope of the Indians. It was a blazing, neck or nothing kind of start.

It also cleared up one thing that had been puzzling me a bit. I mean, on the other track, Australia had, twice already, managed to make runs with apparent ease. On this one, however, the scoring pattern seemed to be dipping -- the last game played here saw India score 181, and the Kiwis struggle to get past it.

I found that rather puzzling -- I mean, two tracks, side by side and prepared by the same curator in the same fashion -- could not be so totally different in character, could they?

They aren't -- as evidenced by the blazing strokeplay of an in-form Australian side and, later, the incredible batting display of Sachin Tendulkar. Nope, nothing the matter with this track, it is all in the mind.

Mark Waugh and Adam Gilchrist got off the blocks in a hurry and when you go flat out in that fashion, the wickets are going to tumble.

Gilchrist's did, first. The ball from Harvinder was outside off and angling further away, the left-hander slashed, got the faint edge and Mongia took the offering.

Mark Waugh and Ricky Ponting (the latter with the cachet, at this point of time, of having the most ODI runs this calendar year) then treated the crowd to an exhibition of driving not seen this side of Formula I. From Waugh, such classical elegance has come to be expected as a norm, but Ponting on the day was not one jot behind, producing a series of fluent drives on the up that left the field standing.

In between, the two also went for the big hits, Mark Waugh starting the fireworks by picking Prasad, smooth as silk, from line of leg and easing him over backward square with no apparent effort.

Then came the real festival, with the introduction, in the 12th over, of Harbajan Singh. It was, judging by the way they played him, a concerted attempt to destroy the teenage offie's line, length and confidence. And they sure succeeded -- first, Mark Waugh picking him for a four and a lovely straight six; then, an over later, Ponting duplicating his partner's efforts in almost identical fashion.

One ball later, a lovely cricket moment was followed by an absolutely ugly one. Harbajan, who had already been picked for two fours and two sixes off just 9 deliveries, responded with a classic arm ball, leaving the right hander. It had got him his first wicket, Greg Blewett, out stumped. In Sharjah, it got him his first ODI wicket. And again, Ponting fell victim to a ball Harbajan seems to bowl as well as Saqlain Mushtaq, going down the track, playing for the turn in to him, ending up being inside the line as the ball drifted away for Mongia to gather and effect the stumping. It was the perfect comeback to the mayhem.

What struck a sour note was the events that followed. Harbajan, pumped up, charged down the wicket, jerked his thumb at Ponting and very clearly yelled "F*** off!". Ponting, who had begun his walk back, changed direction, shoulder charged the bowler, mouthed something which, owing to the fact that his back was turned to the camera and the stump mike, was not clearly audible.

It was an ugly confrontation. And despite the waffling, by the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Ian Chappell in the commentary box, about "spirit" and "caring for their performance", I reckon match referee Talat Ali needs to come down very heavily on both players. More so Harbajan, who could become an even better bowler, not to mention sportsman, with a stiff lesson in on field manners.

The incident occured in the 14th over. And in the very next one, Kumble -- who, while the fireworks were going on at one end, was bowling with impeccable accuracy at the other end -- produced a fizzing topspinner that hurried through after pitching, crashing through Damien Martyn's defence to take out middle stump.

Australia, at the end of the 15 overs, had gone at 20/1 in 5; 58/1 in 10; 87/3 in 15. A blazing start, but the three wickets back in the hut meant that India had a chance to peg the side back.

If India failed to do that, the entire credit goes to two wonderful batsmen, automatic picks for anyone's one-day squad. Mark Waugh was all silken grace, Michael Bevan greased lightning between the wickets (not that the junior Waugh is any slouch, but there is something magical about Bevan's footspeed on the single, reminiscent of the way Dean Jones used to cover the 22 yards in what seemed to be about four or five dancing steps).

It was a quality demonstration of batsmanship by two supreme practitioners of the craft. And the Indians, who for once threw all their resources into an all out effort to check the run accumulation, failed signally. It was not that the bowling was awfully bad, or the fielding full of holes -- it was quite simply that on the day, Bevan and Mark Waugh were in a zone and totally unstoppable.

With them at the helm, Australia cruised through the middle overs, going 116/3 in 20; 173/3 in 30. An over later, Tendulkar was introduced -- and struck immediately. Of late -- towards the latter part of the recent home series against Australia, and now in Sharjah -- he has discovered an ability to bowl fizzing leg breaks that turn sharply in the fashion made famous by Shane Warne, mixed up with googlies and, increasingly, the top-spinners. And it was a leg break, after three top spinners, that did Mark Waugh, then batting fluently on 81 off 99. This one was tossed up outside off, Mark went for the drive expecting another top spinner but the ball spun sharply away, flared off the edge and gave Ganguly, placed precisely for that shot at backward square, the easiest of catches.

Skipper Steve Waugh came in, and left after a brief tenure of 16 balls (10 runs) -- again, courtesy Sachin Tendulkar. Waugh had driven the ball to deep midwicket and, with Bevan at one end, the Aussies went for the brace. Tendulkar picked up and threw away from his body, at the batsman's end, and hit the base of middle stump from just inside the line.

Darren Lehmann's innings today was a bit like the one he played yesterday. Lots of heave and miss; even more incredibly ugly-looking attempts to paddle and reverse sweep. What made it all the more unsightly was the fact that when the batsman choose to play proper cricketing shots, he looked very good indeed. But true to the quality of his innings, he was out wandering away to off to try and hit to leg, ending up poised on one foot while the ball went behind his back to knock off middle stump -- an indication of how far across he had got.

Tom Moody's been the man in form, getting a lot of runs and, going into this game, edging Sachin Tendulkar in terms of having the best strike rate in this competition thus far. It was, therefore, surprising to see him come behind both Martyn and Lehmann. And Moody looked rather out of sorts at either the demotion, or the fact that he was coming in with 44.3 overs of the innings gone. An uncharacteristically laboured 5 off 10 later, he went swiping Prasad straight to Azhar at wide midwicket.

Meanwhile, one man was playing the innings of a lifetime at the other end. Michael Bevan is, on current evidence, the best one day middle order batsman in the contemporary game (his average of 56+ would even seem to bear out his skipper's assessment that he is the best ODI batsman, period). And here, again, he produced an outstanding innings, getting to his second ODI 100 off the penultimate ball of the innings with a square cut four off Harvinder.

To me, two things were remarkable about this knock. One was that he actually hit 9 boundaries, and in the process showed that when the conditions were right, he was as capable of finding the lines as anyone else. But more important was another little statistic -- his century came with the help of an incredible 56 singles, while containing a mere 30 dot balls out of a total of 103 faced.

That figure of 56 in singles tells its tale -- not only is Bevan accumulating runs, he is also constantly rotating the strike, getting his partner involved in the run-getting, and this is his real strength, the facet of his batsmanship that sets him apart from the rest.

Azharuddin has been getting some flak for not utilising his bowling resources to the full. Today, he did precisely that, and very intelligently at that. Thus, Ganguly came on to bowl in the 19th over, Kanitkar in the 20th, Laxman in the 23rd... what the Indian captain was doing was not allowing any batsman to settle too long against any one bowler.

Of the bowlers, Prasad impressed with a good spell at the death, striking twice to peg back the mayhem at the death; Harvinder for the first time in this series bowled within himself to come up with a relatively tidy opening spell; Kumble was magnificient (7-0-17-1) in the middle before being taken big time at the death; and Tendulkar yet again came up with an impressive display of leg spin bowling at a time when the batsmen were looking to fling their bats at everything.

But the bowler who impressed me most was Laxman. His tactic was very simple -- he would go very wide of the crease, and angle the ball in, flat and fast from his high arm action, into the crease around off stump, leaving little or no room for batsmen wanting to play the big hits. And when a left hander was at strike, he stuck to that policy, promptly going round the wicket to get the same restrictive angle going. A lovely demonstration of thoughtful bowling, and I thought he deserved more than the four overs he got to bowl.

All told, Australia had put up 284/7 -- a huge ask, by any standards for a team batting second, under lights, at Sharjah. For India, the first task was to get to 254, which would ensure the side made the final ahead of New Zealand on net run rate.

The Saurav Ganguly-Sachin Tendulkar pairing at the top is a very good one, but there is a major problem that prevents the duo from claiming to be among the very best in the business. And that is the inability to rotate strike. For instance, when Ganguly left for 17 (two fours) in the ninth over, he had faced 32 deliveries to Tendulkar's 22. And for a period there, Tendulkar was at the non-striker's end for 15 deliveries on the run.

Now, this kind of thing negates the advantage of the left-right pairing, which works best when the two batsmen are constantly rotating strike, forcing the fielders to run around, the bowlers to alter their length and line. It is an area Ganguly will have to pay some close attention to, if the opening pair is to really play to its potential.

What made today's display of non-running more crucial than on other days was that it came just when Tendulkar was looking to cut loose. There is some kind of thing going on between Tendulkar and Kapra -- each time the Aussie quick bowls to him, Sachin is looking to demolish him. And the bowler for his part uses his jaws for a lot more than chewing his stick of gum. It happened again here, in the 6th over, when Sachin danced down the wicket a good four, five steps -- bear in mind he was already standing outside the crease -- and flat batted the bowler's first delivery back over his head for a huge six. The fast bowler's response to that is predictable -- the next ball was pitched short, Sachin cleverly waited for it inside the crease and despatched it over backward square for another six. (In the 12th over, Sachin was to repeat the treatment, this time getting two fours on the trot to Kapra). And, after another single, went back to playing spectator at the other end.

Ganguly, yet again, fell trying to get inside the line to a ball from Fleming pitched leg stump and hurrying in, failing with the flick and being caught plumb in front. And at this point, Azharuddin produced another stroke of good captaincy, sending in Nayan Mongia to pinch-hit.

The diminutive keeper has been in good striking form in this tournament, and promoting him to belt a few was a good move given that the first wicket partnership had managed only 38 off 8.3 overs. And Mongia obliged. After playing out about 8 dot balls, he launched into Tom Moody's first ball of the innings, sending it one bounce into the fence at long off and followed up, next ball, with a soaring on drive that got him the maximum.

From that point on, Mongia settled into giving Tendulkar very good support, and between them, the two got the scoreboard moving smoothly for the first time in the innings. India, thus, went at 15/0 in 5; 39/1 in 10; 72/1 in 15; 93/1 in 20. At this point, in fact, India were 23 runs behind Australia, but had lost just the one wicket and, what was more, had a pinch-hitter in which meant that the regular batsmen were still waiting their turn.

Mongia didn't keep Azharuddin waiting too long after that, hitting Moody straight to Mark Waugh at deep midwicket as he tried, once too often, to find the fence in that direction.

Azharuddin looked in fine touch. And with his advent, the running between wickets was bound to improve as well, so India at this stage seemed well on course to accomplish its first goal of making the final and, given some good batting, of even pulling off a win.

So just why the Indian skipper felt the need, that early in his innings, to stand tall and swing away at a very ordinary ball from Moody way outside off, only to end up dragging it off the inner edge back onto his stumps, is a mystery -- there was really no need for a shot of that flamboyance at that juncture, more so given that he, along with Tendulkar, was the batsman capable of really guiding India on the huge chase.

Ajay Jadeja, during the Pepsi Cup in India, was unstoppable. Here, he has been eminently forgettable. It is not just that he has been getting out cheaply just when the team needs him to stay, but more the way he has been getting out. Here, he stayed four balls, then drove at the fifth, from Steve Waugh, without getting anywhere near the pitch of the ball, and Adam Gilchrist flung himself a long way to his right to pull off one of those catches that seem to just 'stick'.

The departure of Azharuddin and Jadeja, within 7 deliveries of one another, checked the Indian scoring at the very stage when it was imperative to keep the board ticking over. Thus, India had progressed to 120/2 in 25; 141/4 in 30.

And at the end of the 31st over, along came a swirling dust-storm that looked likely to create a Sahara in centre-field. 31 overs having been bowled then, the game could well have ended if the storm didn't abate. And if that had happened, India would have been on the flight back tomorrow -- as per the computations, India needed to be around 175 at that stage to win the match, and close to that score to pip the Kiwis on the run rate.

When the storm settled, four overs had been knocked off the 50 permissible to India. And 8 runs had been reduced, revising the target to 276 to win at 8.86 per over, or 246 to get to the final.

Sachin Tendulkar had, at that point, been going pretty sedately by his standards, his 50 having come off 57 deliveries with three fours and two sixes, and for the most part, his role in the proceedings being reduced to that of spectator at one end while his colleagues paraded up and down at the other.

The players then trooped back after the unscheduled break, and Tendulkar took charge. And from that point on, there was one guy doing his thing out there, while his partner, and 11 Australian players, were reduced to a passive watching brief.

Superlatives have been used of Sachin before, but the sheer murderous fury of his assault on resumption was something else. The last ball of Kapra's first over after the break was deposited back over the bowler's head for a six, prompting some rather inspired jawing from the bowler. And from there on, Tendulkar just kept going. Laxman, meanwhile, played his part admirably, running hard -- for the first time in the game, perhaps the series, the Indian running between wickets matched the standards set by the Australians -- taking singles off every ball he faced, and then standing back to let Sachin play Lone Hand Luke.

Tendulkar didn't lose it completely, however, concentrating instead on taking ones and twos, keeping the asking rate in sight, and the pair took India to 165/4 in 35; 205/4 in 40.

As the score inched towards the cut off point for an Indian entry into the final, Sachin finally shed his inhibitions and went for broke. In the 42nd over, Steve Waugh disappeared to the straight boundary for six (Sachin, in fact, got most of his sixes in this innings to the straight fence). The next ball was swung over midwicket, Damien Martyn flooring it after a good attempt to hold, and watching the power behind the hit take the ball onto the ropes. Fleming bowled the 43rd, and the first ball went over long on for six more. A two got Sachin to his highest ODI score, the next ball was blasted through extra cover for another four...

"I thought, having by then helped get India to the final, that it might be nice to try and win the game outright," Tendulkar was to say later, about this assault, while receiving the man of the match award. And as the television commentators, Tony Greig and Ian Chappell, of the time kept saying -- in the midst of the frenzy of superlatives they seem to lapse into when Tendulkar steps on it -- a win looked a very distinct possibility.

At which point, came the anticlimactic dismissal. A frustrated Fleming banged one in short, the ball climbed on Sachin, who launched into a pull only to glove it to the keeper. Everyone appealed. And finally, Ian Robinson gave Tendulkar out -- oblivious, perhaps, of a little coda in the rule book that says that a ball going over shoulder high (and Sachin was pulling this from in front of his eyebrows) is a no ball.

The sheer majesty of Sachin's post-break blitz is indicated by one statistic -- with Laxman, he added 104 in all. Of which Laxman managed 20. Again, Tendulkar had got to his 100 at slightly over a run a ball. When he was out, however, it was on 142 off 131 balls with 9 fours and four sixes. And a numbing 37 runs had come off 17 deliveries, after India were 205/4 in 40, before Tendulkar's exit off the last ball of the 43rd over.

Kanitkar and Laxman, the latter having played a cool, composed innings of 23 off 34 and, more to the point, hung around just when Tendulkar needed a warm body at the other end, then restored sanity to the proceedings by managing a further 8 runs off three overs, to take India to 250/5 in 46 overs, giving Australia its sixth straight win, this one on the basis of better run rate.

Coca Cola announced a spot prize, of 20,000 pounds, for the innings, which Ian Chappell described as one of the truly great one day knocks and Ravi Shastri rated as Tendulkar's best, simply because it had been made under such enormous pressure, against a rampant side, and almost entirely without adequate support.

But more interestingly, Tendulkar gave himself a birthday present -- by ensuring that on Friday, when he turns 25, he will be in Sharjah playing in the final, not back home with the rest of the team, smarting from having missed out on the Sharjah party yet again.

Scoreboard