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India fail to press home the result

The last six Test matches on Indian soil have yielded results. This one ended in a draw, and it is hard to escape the conclusion that both sides were culpable, that both New Zealand and India had their chances and failed to capitalise.

New Zealand had its chance when it bowled out India for 83 on the first morning, then went into the lead with 8 batsmen left in the hut. A combination of superb pace and seam bowling by Srinath, and some bad batting by the Kiwi middle order, put paid to those chances.

India in its turn produced a far more disciplined display of batting, to become the first side in history to put 500+ on the board after being shot out for under 100 in the first innings. And with 135 overs to bowl the Kiwis out on a track where the odd ball kept low, and which provided turn and bounce, albeit on the slow side, to the spinners, must admit to not having bowled as well as it should have under the circumstances.

However, to win, the Indian spinners had to be the ones to do the job on the final day. There was turn, there was a touch of uncertain bounce -- and as is evident from the Kiwi progression through the day, and the number of balls each batsman faced in relation to runs scored, the batting side was completely on the defensive, and therefore the bowlers were under little if any pressure. Further, the field was as aggressive as it could get -- at times, Kumble and Joshi bowled with five round the bat, never did they have to bowl with less than three or four close catchers.

The turn off the track was admittedly slow -- a factor often trotted out as a mitigating circumstance by bowling sides. However, the counter to that -- as a Prasanna, or a Bedi, would tell you -- is to bowl a length that touch fuller, thereby giving the batsman less time to read turn off the track.

It was in this last that the spinners failed. Joshi kept it up a lot of the time, and got a couple of wickets (and further, could count himself unlucky that a few edges dropped short of the close catchers). Bharadwaj, as a part-timer, can't possibly be expected to have that skill level. Kumble, for his part, produced only the odd ball that was fuller and each time he did that, he had the batsman in trouble. However, those balls were few and far between -- and that was one of the factors that made the big difference.

(Interestingly, Tendulkar's confidence in Kumble would seem to be at an all time low -- he began with Joshi and Srinath, bowled the former for the first hour and a half non-stop, brought on Prasad as first change, and brought in Kumble only as second change with a little over half an hour left of the first session).

Srinath toiled manfully and was, with Joshi, easily the most impressive of the Indian bowlers -- but this just wasn't a seamer's track on day five, the ball coming too slowly off the deck to cause too many problems for the batsmen.

A large part of the credit for batting the Kiwis out of jail belongs to skipper Stephen Fleming -- who from the start of his innings, had apparently focussed on being there till the end. He eschewed strokeplay, concentrated on defence, and came up with a superb captain's knock under extreme pressure. He shut one end down, against spin and seam alike, and this meant that India could only attack at the other. The other Kiwi batsmen for their part did their bit, each of them occupying valuable time, and overs, before giving up their wickets -- and with 90 to play out in the day, every over that went wicketless furthered the Kiwi cause and put a win that much further beyond the Indian reach.

In light of Martin Crowe's recent column criticising sub-continental umpiring, it was ironic that this same factor contributed, to an extent, towards the result.

The LBW dismissal is covered in law 36. And subsection (b) reads thus: The striker shall be out LBW even if the ball is intercepted outside the line of off stump, if in the opinion of the umpire the batsman has made no genuine attempt to play the ball with his bat, but has intercepted the ball with some part of his person and if the other circumstances set out in (a) apply.

Shorn of jargon, what it means is that even if the ball pitches outside off stump and the batsman, rather than play a shot, pushes his pad at it, the umpire can give him out if the ball would then have gone on to hit the stumps.

If umpires Peter Manuel and S Venkatraghavan had applied that rule, this game would probably have had a different result. In Venkatesh Prasad's first over of the day, Fleming twice stuck his pad out. On the second occasion, if the above rule were applied, Fleming was out. Craig Spearman and Nathan Astle similarly had the benefit, against Kumble (and given how Kumble bowls, with his preponderance of flippers, if the batsman gets away with pushing his pad at everything with bat out of line, there really is no way he can get a wicket). Again, at 196/4, with Prasad going round the wicket, the left-handed Fleming stuck his pad out, and on the virtual replay, as the commentators of the time, Robin Jackman and Geoffrey Boycott, pointed out, the batsman was out had the umpires applied the rule.

The above is not an excuse the Indians can give for not being able to pull off a win -- and it is not being mentioned here for that purpose. The point behind this mention is simply this: while the rules very clearly legislate against deliberate pad play where the batsman makes no attempt to play the shot, most international umpires have been reluctant to enforce it. Some, like Steve Dunne, David Shepherd to an extent, and Rudi Koertzen tend to give the decision to the bowler when the case is blatant (and when that happens, the batsman -- seemingly oblivious of the rule book -- walks off with an injured, aggrieved look and much pouting).

You can't complain, though. Cricket has left it to the umpires to interpret its rules -- and complaint (as a certain Mister Martin Crowe should know) is valid only if the umpires are not consistent in their interpretation. In this game, both umpires on view have tended to turn down LBW appeals unless the ball pitched in line with the stumps and was tending to go through straight, and since they have applied that rule uniformly to both sides, I don't think either Crowe, or the Indians, have cause to lament.

What could the Indians have done differently? As we pointed out prior to the Test, the selectors could have picked form, not reputation -- in which case, Mohanty would have been the support for Srinath, and Harbajan and Joshi would have been bowling in tandem, with Bharadwaj as your fifth bowler, and Ganguly as support seamer. Mohanty, with his ability to swing and seam both the new ball and the old, would have been the better bet in conditions where the likes of Nathan Astle did very well. Another pointer to why Mohanty rather than Prasad would have been the ideal choice here lies in the bowling figures -- Prasad bowled 16 overs in the innings, which was only fractionally over what the non-regular, Bharadwaj, sent down.

And if you were watching when a frustrated Tendulkar took the ball to bowl off breaks and in fact made them turn rapidly back into the right handers or dart away from the left-hander, you'd have realised what an asset Harbhajan could have been. And on the field, Ganguly, I thought, could have been tried by Tendulkar -- at the very least, as an experiment, given that he does have the ability to make the ball wobble in the air, and seam off the track, and his advent appears often to force lapses in concentration on the part of the batsmen.

For the record, this is how the wickets went:

The first of the day, that of Mathew Horne, owed to Ganguly's sharp thinking. Against Joshi, Horne had taken to covering line of off, pushing defensively only if the ball was on line of middle and off, and tending to leave the rest alone. Ganguly kept gesturing to the bowler to go over the wicket -- a line that would compel Horne to play the ball more often. Sure enough, off the first ball Joshi bowled from over the wicket, Horne was forced into the push, the ball took the edge and Ganguly himself dived at slip to hold. Interestingly, the fielder's gesture, as soon as he took the catch, was to turn both palms upwards in a "what did I tell you?" expression. that wicket fell at 95/2, Horne having scored 33 runs and, more importantly, kept the Indian bowlers at bay for 153 balls.

A bit earlier, with the score on 88/1, Joshi should have got Spearman as well. The batsman pushed at the arm ball, the ball flew off the thick inner edge and Ramesh at short square leg, who has a habit of standing more or less upright (fielders standing close tend to stay low to the ground) couldn't get low enough in time to get his fingers under the ball.

Spearman however fell eventually to Joshi, when he attempted to sweep a ball tossed up on line of leg. Spearman missed the line, the ball turned in, got the glove, and lobbed to slip for Ganguly to hold another one. That wicket fell at 108/3, in the 60th over. Spearman, who handled spin well, scored 35 and, like with Horne, his real contribution to the team cause came in the 162 deliveries he played out.

Those two wickets fell in the pre-lunch session, which produced 54 runs in 30 overs.

Srinath, who worked hard all day, took out number three when he produced an awayswinger on a fullish length to have Astle pushing at it, the edge taken by MSK Prasad with New Zealand on 186/4. Astle had made 34, played out 123 deliveries, and ensured that for 40 overs, he kept Fleming company out there and prevented further breakthroughs.

Srinath gave McMillan a torrid time, ringing him around with close catchers and testing him with the short stuff, against which the Kiwi batsman is notoriously suspect. It was Kumble however who finally got the wicket, when he had the batsman pushing forward at a ball on off, to get inner edge onto pad for Ramesh to hold at silly point. The fifth wicket fell at 227, off the third ball of the 120th over. It also signalled the end of the 5th hour of play, which meant that Kumble, to whom India looks to strike to force fourth innings wins, had got onto the board only after 5 hours on the final day, and with a minimum of just 15 overs remaining in the game.

With three overs to go, Parore pushed at one from Kumble going round the wicket, got edge onto pad and gave short square leg an easy take to have the Kiwis on 246/6. At that point, there were 2.4 overs left, minimum.

In the final over of the day, of the last ball of the match, Kumble went round the wicket, Stephen Fleming pushed without really seeming focussed (the concentration going once the job was done, perhaps?) and the ball went off the glove to short square, to have the Kiwis, at the end of the day, to 253/7, Fleming walking back after a match-saving innings of 73, having maintained his vigil for 215 deliveries.

India needed just three more wickets -- but had run out of time.

And that pointed to another flaw in the Indian thinking -- on the day, they bowled 14.4 overs per hour minimum. What needs to be kept in mind is that while they had to bowl a minimum 90 overs in the regulation playing time, it was in the Indian interest to bowl as many more as possible, and with three spinners, a bowling rate of 16, 17 overs an hour is quite on the cards. Had they thought of the importance of squeezing through as many overs as possible, they could have easily got in another 10, 12 overs. Tendulkar however took his time setting fields, the fielders took their own time crossing over between overs and settling in, the bowlers ambled to the top of their marks, a sense of urgency was conspicously absent and collectively, the team missed another strategic bet here, and that reflects badly on both captain and coach.

Bottomline, the Kiwis will consider they have done well to escape with a draw after being made to chase an impossible target on a fourth and fifth day track.

The Indians will probably think they have done well to pull off a draw after being 83 all out in 27 overs on the first day. And therein lies the real tragedy -- they had a win within their grasp, and failed to force it home. Satisfaction, thus, would hardly be the right emotion at the end of this game.

Fleming, after the match: "We had our chance when we got India out for 83, and we didn't take it, the Indians in the second innings batted very well and put the pressure back on us. The game has taught us a few lessons, we know it is tough going in the remaining two Tests. Today, we told ourselves to play it ball by ball, we thought that scoring 2 per over for the whole innings was too much, so we focussed on going for the draw."

Sachin Tendulkar: "A draw was not the result I was hoping for, we were bowled out for 83 in the first innings but we bowled well, thanks to Srinath who brought us back into the game and we batted well in the second innings, but unfortunately, we failed to take a lot of half chances in the New Zealand second innings and that was disappointing, we need to take these half chances and fight to win."

Javagal Srinath, man of the match: "The rest I got before the Test helped a lot, I could come back fresh. When we were 83 all out, there was something in the wicket and so I knew I could do it too. It was unfortunate that we couldn't repeat the performance today."

Tailpiece: The national selectors have retained the same squad for the second Test. Which means that Chandu Borde and company have hammered another nail into Mohammad Azharuddin's cricketing coffin.

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