Side lines

The more things change...

NADEEM A. KHAN

Wednesday, October 23. "We must not look back now,'' Sachin Tendulkar, quite the orator, said shortly after two of his men dragged home an impossible victory. For a team that has been keeping an active, often moist eye out for the light at the end of the tunnel, Monday's effort against Australia was a nice change of pace

In the Sawai Man Singh stadium on Wednesday the South African juggernaut rolled over the Indians, backed up and had another go.

It's not easy to sit back after and analyze what went awry. No, I take that back. It is easy but never accepted in the right spirit. If someone in the Indian management did their job, perhaps with my fervor, the side would be saving itself the ignominy of defeat while preventing any more of these "diatribe-filled" eulogies.

After the Bangalore engagement, which had more twists, turns, and a higher violence content than "Mission:Impossible" much was expected from the squad that had dropped a hint of rehabilitation. If Game 3 implied they had the ability to rise on the stepping stones of their dead selves then Game 4 suggested you can't read too much into India's one-off miracles.

Beyond the incalculable pleasure of seeing a cricket match that has displays of rotten sportsmanship, blood-thirsty spectators, and widespread anarchy--Monday's game springs to mind--today's fixture boasted the upside down virtues of a sedate cricket match: i.e. lack of all of the above.

The Teams

South Africa, the very picture of health, showed up with the same bunch that chopped Austalia at the knees in Indore last week.
Programmed into accepting that the worst will happen no matter what, the Indian management, for reasons best left unexplored, felt it could skimp on a fifth specialist bowler and chose to embrace the opposition with six batters. The latest to join the group is Pankaj Dharmani. Of course, with India's embarrassment of riches in the bowling arena, "fifth" and "specialist bowler" have become misnomers. So the inclusion of an additional bloke to counter the generosity of the part-timer(s) was, on some morbid fronts, justified. But, if you had decided to play six batsmen wouldn't you rather bat first and put up a decent sort of total? With a debonair wave of the hand, Tendulkar, who won the toss, asked Cronje to pad up. The South African skipper may not have said, "Really?!!!" but he did restrain himself when perhaps the impulse was to clasp his little equal and kiss him on both cheeks. Tendulkar's unwitting act of mercy had already sealed India's fate.

Maybe I am being harsh--after all, the decision to insert self or the opposition is a "collective" one and we can forgive Tendulkar for succumbing, momentarily, to the mind- numbing virus that often blanketed Azharuddin's reign.

As the Indian's took field, you could, if you concentrated hard enough, hear the Lalo Schifrin theme: Dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb-dumb--dumb-dumb-dumb--dumb....

South African Innings

The South Africans had a false start with Hudson dishing the situation sooner than expected but that did little to discourage the Springboks' growth. The difference between a champion side, for the sake of understanding this better let's sample South Africa, and an ordinary one, for hypothetical purposes only let's tag this one India, is that the champion has a limitless reserve of confidence and self-belief. When Kirsten departed for 29, which by his standards is a trifle, and Cronje took guard, with the score on 55, there were still no signs of weakness. Put it down to the manner in which Hansie gets to the nub of the matter.This hardy lad is among the most inspiring players in world cricket today. He dwarfs the spinners and sometimes the faster bowlers, but it is his stroke play early on that really plunges rival skippers into deep bouts of depression. His panoramic, assured shots, slid through the gaps with ease and had Sachin wondering if a few of his men were absent. Eleven, especially Tendulkar's, weren't enough to clog the holes in Cronje's big broad outlook and he helped himself to a fifty. The SA captain was then pleased to see Cullinan get his. Together the duo put on, much to the Jaipurian's chagrin, 113 in 23. Prasad, Srinath and Kumble were within the acceptable range of accuracy but there was nothing in India's arsenal to elicit neither caution nor a startled "Whoa!".

Then Tendulkar fingered the sore; his 3 overs for 22, being crappier than Monday's 8- 45, blew India out of the water. For the second time in as many games, Mohammed Azharuddin had a fatherly sort of meeting with the Captain after which Jadeja was drafted in. Ajay's questionable nostrum brought in a pair of wickets and at least one can be chalked up to boredom on the part of the batsmen. 69 runs were ripped off the Ajay- Sachin combine and the Republic finished on 249. Cullinan went on to make a hundred-- his third.

Indian Innings

Tendulkar abandoned the S. Somasunder business and Saurav Ganguly curvetted into the vacancy. The opening stand, 126 runs of it, had India's 1 & 2 running in too many directions. "When in doubt or caught short, it's always better to underplay than to go for broke," great coaches tell their players. After smacking 22 from the first 3, they desisted, with suspicion from further efforts along similar lines. "Surely," you can imagine Sachin warning his mate. "It cannot be so easy."
The skipper and his cohort embarked on a minimalism, "dropped anchor" to some, that bordered on ineptitude or gutlessness. During the course of his youthful career Ganguly has shown himself to work well on multiple levels--he's batted at 1, 2, 5, and even 8. Today, he looked fogged and when Tendulkar (64/93; 3x4) thumped McMillan to Kirsten, the innings had begun to creak under the strain.

Woolmer's laptop has had it's fifteen minutes of fame--and more. Stop the affable manager and he'll freely tell you he's been plugging in vital data about Dravid and Ganguly. "Ways to dislodge these two," he'll wink furtively. It is unclear if the Aussies have access to such privileged information and Dravid's dud on Monday may be, until more evidence surfaces, attributed to chance. Nevertheless, his latest cameo, cut short on ball one--an attempted glide off Brian-- apparently sprang another method on Bob who pounded furiously into the HP.

Two wickets in as many balls reeled in Mohammed Azharuddin. After his insensate display in Bangalore, which triggered a mini-riot, the Hyderabadi should have been left out on disciplinary grounds and probably would have had Srinath not pulled that one from the brink.

No one makes up for bad behavior or a foul patch more endearingly than Azharuddin. And in terms of elegance of strokeplay he is unmatched. His latest production wasn't vintage Azhar and yet he slithered through the orifices with astonishing precision, at times depositing deliveries from Donald, that were a foot outside off, to behind square leg. It was a mesmerizing exhibition that lifted the quality of the proceedings and the momentum. The tempo nose- dived noticeably when the batters switched extremities and with no end in sight to Ganguly's agonizing spadework, time was running out. Cronje was unsubtle in his efforts to keep the lefty in and when the Bengali realized the ploy, his natural instinct was to club Donald--at least he tried to and the crowd turned its face. Saurav's 54 (104; 3x4) served up no answers to India's opening fix and with his dismissal the march began: Jadeja, Srinath, Dharmani, and Kumble blew in and out and I forget who it was that held out long enough for Azhar to get a futile 50 (56; 5x4). The innings of the day and the polite crowd deserved a more fruitful reward than India losing by 27.

Once again the frantic changes in personnel and order still had no effect on the outcome.