India beat RSA handily in Mohinder Benefit tie

Prem Panicker

At the end of it all, one is a bit confused. There is - and here it is the Indian cricket fan, not the unbiased reporter, speaking - a sense of satisfaction that the team is finally coming together as a strong, cohesive outfit capable of taking on all comers.

And - still speaking as an Indian - there is a sense of sorrow that the Bombay crowd went the way of Calcutta, Bangalore and Ahmedabad, with a sorry display of bad sportsmanship. Media reports of the match have mentioned that the decision against Azharuddin was dubious. It was more than that - umpire Subroto Porel got it dead wrong. But it was a very close call, a genuine error. And irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the verdict, the crowd had no business behaving as it did - in the event, all that the incident has achieved is underlined the Indian crowds growing reputation for boorish behaviour, and that is a very real tragedy.

And - this time speaking as a sports-lover - it was very sad to see the South Africans, of all people, resort to sledging. Open and blatant abuse on the field. And ungentlemanly conduct off it. Most especially sad to see the gentlemanly Hansie Cronje order the Indian administrator, assigned to look after the South African side, out of the team's dressing room during the dinner break. Sure, he apologised to the gent later - but the damage has already been done, and the impression we are left with is that the South Africans (like the Indian crowds) are better at dishing it out than they are at taking it.

That it all had to happen on a day dedicated to Mohinder Amarnath, one of the true sportsmen the game has ever produced, only compounds the tragedy.

For the Mohinder Amarnath benefit - and it must be pointed out, right upfront, that this was no festival match but the real thing, a genuine one day international - the Wankhede Stadium curator produced a wicket with bounce, hard enough to give the seamers cause to smile and with sufficient life to enable the spinners to turn the ball a foot and more, if they tossed it up and let it 'bite'.

It was a wicket on which everything was possible - good bowling both pace and spin, and uninhibited strokeplay. The toss, thus, was not a factor - the wicket would not deteriorate in course of play, and therefore the question of which side batted first was, in terms of the result, purely academic.

As for the teams, India went in with just two changes from the side that defeated South Africa in the third Test. In place of Saurav Ganguly - resting a twisted ankle ahead of the team's tour of South Africa - Ajay Jadeja came in. And Robin Singh replaced W V Raman.

The South African management, for its part, left out Richardson - nursing a slight flu, we were told. As also Lance Klusener, also reportedly not at peak fitness. And instead, brought in Dereck Crookes and Nicky Boje.

Sachin Tendulkar won the toss. And, perhaps predictably, opted for first strike.

For a long time now, we have been saying that Sachin Tendulkar's new found penchant for "hanging around" and trying to play the long innings wasn't doing anybody - either himself, or his team - much good.

Sachin is, in that sense, a bit like Srikkanth. Let him play his natural game, and he is devastating. Put him in a defensive frame of mind, and he tends to look very ordinary, and in the event does not get the kind of runs that justify that style of play.

On Saturday, in front of his home crowd, Sachin reverted to his normal mode of batting in one-dayers - full throttle, and totally uninhibited despite being let off twice before he had crossed his twenties, the first time when he failed to keep down a slashed cut and Gibbs jumped too early and ended up spilling it, then when McMillan reacted a shade late for a return catch.

Sachin shrugged off both lapses and, playing all the strokes that have made him one of the most desrtuctive openers in one day cricket, raced to a century (114) in just 126 balls that saw India, around the 30-over mark, poised for a total of around the 260, 270 mark.

This is the real value of having Sachin go out there and blaze away - when he clicks, he puts India in the perfect position to go for the match-winning total. And add to this the fact that Sachin is the quintessential one-day player - not only does he scatter the bowling to all parts of the field, but he also has the knack of pushing the singles, rotating strike and upsetting the fielding side's rhythm, thus making it easier for the other batsmen.

W V Raman - the 11th batsman to open for India this year - looked solid in support. He kept his game plan simple - ensure that Sachin got as much of the strike as possible. And make sure that he did not play out any maiden overs, and let the bowling and fielding get on top. The result, India was off to a start of 90 runs, fully 71 of them coming in the first 15 overs, before he tried to hit Symcox out of the ground and, on the longer boundaries of the Wankhede, holed out. He had, however, earlier hit the same bowler for a superb six, taking him on the up and hitting through the spin to send the ball a long way over the long off stands.

Azharuddin looked as good as he has in recent times and, from the very beginning, found the runs flowing freely with his combination of wristy flicks and more full-blooded drives. He and Sachin make easily the best pair of runners between wickets in the side, and 60 runs for the second wicket came with such ease that India, at that stage, seemed headed for a record score. Then came the unfortunate incident that sparked so much else - Azhar went forward, a ball from Crookes spun and clipped his pad, passing very close to the glove and ballooning for Kirsten, keeping wickets in the absence of Richardson, to take. The catch was claimed, and given.

Umpire Porel could be forgiven for the lapse - the ball passed very, very close to the glove, and it needed careful scrutiny to determine that there was no touch. Unfortunately, Azhar - who, along with his new-found batting form, has apparently also discovered in himself a new intolerance for bad decisions - again repeated his performance in Bangalore, protesting openly, looking with total disgust at the umpire and talking to himself angrily all the way to the pavilion.

The crowd saw this. Then watched half a dozen replays on the giant screen. And began saying it with bottles and chips of concrete. A visibly upset Cronje pulled his players off the field, and play was held up for 18 minutes, till order could be restored.

Two points need mentioning. Any batsman can get upset when an umpiring error truncates his innings - irrespective of his form. But no batsman has the right to make his dissent so obvious - for better or worse, the umpire's verdict is final, and has to be accepted as such.

The other is this - no crowd has the right to get into the game in that boorish fashion. Chips of concrete are flung at visiting players - what happens if the Indian team is treated in similar fashion abroad? In any event, what gives the crowd the right to take matters into its own hands? I think it is time the ICC took this up as a major issue, and armed match referees with the authority to immediately stop the play, concede the game to the rival side and place the venue concerned on a ban list for international cricketing fixtures.

After Azhar's exit, Tendulkar and Jadeja continued the tip and run tactic, interspersed with the occasional harder hit, till Sachin jumped out to Nicky Boje - who got so much bite and turn, and bowled so well, that he only underscored the error of the S'African management in not playing him in the Tests - to be stumped by Kirsten. And immediately thereafter, Cullinan with an electric bit of fielding caught Dravid out of his ground, and brought Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh together in the middle.

These were the two batsmen who were expected to really mount the slog - and yet, inexplicably, between overs number 41 and 46, they lost their way, struggling to get singles and totally failing to get the bigger hits. Singh, in fact, perished in the attempt, first swinging Adams for a six, then trying to repeat and holing out to mid wicket.

Javagal Srinath came out ahead of Joshi - and Pat Symcox, of all people, got into a sledging match with the Indian quick. It was a rather sad sight, watching the burly bowler go "F*** you, man!" at Srinath - the TV cameras made it very obvious what was being said - and though the bowler, at the end of the over, went over and said "Cool it!" to Srinath, the damage was done. Srinath lost it totally, hit out, and holed out.

And then Ajay Jadeja proved, yet again - and to the considerably embarassment of the national selectors - just why he is one of the most destructive batsmen in these situations. It was he who was responsible for two of India's best one day victories this year - at Bangalore against Pakistan, and at the Wankhede in the Titan Cup final. And he did it again here, mounting a calculated assault on Adams and Symcox that peppered the stands with four magnificient sixes - one of them, off Adams, going so high it came back with a flight ticket and two bludgeoning fours to rocket India to 267 for six in its fifty overs. Jadeja, in fact, was magnificient in the final over, finishing off the proceedings by nonchalantly sweeping Adams into the stands off the very last ball.

For South Africa, none of the bowlers with the exception of Boje impressed. I am not sure whether they just did not have their hearts in it, or whether it was just one of those days. But with the new ball, even the normally good Fanie De Villiers strayed all over the park and as for McMillan, he was so wayward as to be totally ineffective. Boje, though, was brilliant. Perfect length and line, a lovely looping flight, and lots of turn ensured that not one Indian batsman, including the rampaging Sachin, played him with total confidence.

Frankly, South Africa had lost the match before the Indian innings ended. Its first mistake was to bowl badly and let the Indians plunder a huge total. It's second was to sledge.

Aamir Sohail was the first to discover that the Indian new ball bowlers and, indeed, the whole team, have long since shed the nice guy image, the silent-sufferer act. These days, they give as good as they get - and more, the players get so charged up after such incidents that sledging is, increasingly, as sane an act as taking a stick and deliberately poking at a sleeping rattler.

Ask Hudson and Kirsten. Srinath came out to bowl and, on a wicket that gave lift and bounce, he went flat out with one of the fastest, most aggressive bowling displays seen in recent times. On the day, he was, quite simply, unplayable, time and again turning the batsmen inside out and beating the bat, both on the outer and inner edges.

And as happens so very often, when Srinath bowls this way, it is Prasad who reaps the benefits at the other end. Kirsten, realising that Srinath was not going to get hit, tried the drive against Prasad - the ball was held back, and moved off the seam, and Azhar took a catch at slip with customary brilliance.

Hansie Cronje came in, and looked determined to hit his team out of trouble - the problem being that again, Prasad is very dangerous to play in pre-determined fashion. One slashing cover drive rocketed to the fence. Prasad dropped the next ball in the same slot, Cronje went again for the drive, and again the slower ball producing the ballooning bottom edge for Joshi to hold with ease at cover.

Cullinan and Hudson looked to be batting the side out of trouble, taking singles and goiong after the occasional loose delivery. But again, the lack of application in this batting line up was evident - the minute the spinners were introduced, Hudson began sweeping. And sure enough, it was only a matter of time before Joshi, having fed the sweep and conceeded two fours, tossed one just a fraction higher. Hudson swept, the ball curled round his legs and bowled him behind his back - text book stuff, and a carbon copy of Joshi's dismissal of Brian McMillan in the Test series, when the burly all-rounder tried the similar stunt of sweeping him out of the attack.

Herschelle Gibbs came in and again, two South African batsmen looked good out there without, however, looking at any stage as if they were capable of sustained application under pressure. In fact, that has been the problem with this outfit all through - the batsmen have looked good only when they could throw their bats around at everything and find the breaks going for them. Here, the Indians bowled a very tight length and line, the fielding - with Robin Singh in particular dazzling, outshining even the electric Azhar and Jadeja - was like a restrictive noose, making run-getting very very difficult.

The result - the asking rate mounted, and South Africa cracked open. Cullinan went for a predetermined pull - in fact, so obvious was his intention that Robin Singh merely slanted the ball further into his body. If Cullinan had been standing where a batsman normally does, that ball would have been called wide by yards - in the event, he was about two yards outside the leg stump, cramped for space on the pull he had set his mind on playing, and easily caught. Gibbs lashed a drive at Prasad's slower ball, totally beaten by the variation, and Raman had no problem sending him back. McMillan had no answer to Srinath's pace and lift and, after being beaten by two deliveries that darted back into him like vicious off breaks, failed to spot the one leaving him and gave the keeper a regulation catch (and Srinath his 150th wicket in ODIs), Boje made the mistake of trying to hit Kumble out of the ground, De Villiers was beaten by another Srinath beauty, the ball swinging in towards leg, then darting back out off the seam, opening the batsman up and finding the gap between bat and pad... and Prasad finished it all off with a regulation outswinger that took Adams' edge for Mongia to finish the job, and give India a win by 74 runs.

Tendulkar was adjudged the man of the match, sure - but for my money, the player to really have an impact on the day's play was Jadeja. Without that destructive blitz at the end, the Indian total - even with Tendulkar's heroics at the top of the order - would never have been challenging enough to put such pressure on the visitors. Jadeja had for the third time won a game for his side with the bat - and Ramakant Desai, for one, must be a very chastened man indeed. In the event, Tendulkar should be a contented man - after a rocky start to his captaincy, with successive defeats in Sri Lanka and Toronto, he appears to have finally got his act together. Since going down 3-2 to Pakistan, Tendulkar has led the side to a win in the one-off Test against Australia, to the Titan Cup triumph pipping both Australia and RSA, to the Test series win against the latter country, and now rounded it off with a comfortable win in what was billed as a revenge match.

Expectations are going to be awesome - but this is a young team, and I get the sneaky feeling that it just might come back from the twin tours of RSA and the Windies with surprising results for fans and commentators used to thinking that India can never win abroad.

Meanwhile, what of RSA? It is, frankly, a side with enormous promise. And it should be borne in mind that on home wickets, the batsmen will be far more dangerous, because they know how to get runs on those tracks. But with all due respect in the world, Cronje's side will need to work on one aspect - its collective mental strength. Because too often in these last three months, the side has tended to crack under pressure, and that is one aspect of the team's cricketing mindset that future opponents will increasingly look at targetting.

Oh well, Boxing Day - and the first Test of the South African leg of the series - is less than a fortnight away... and at that point, we will know just how much of a difference home conditions will make, both for India and for South Africa.

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