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Powell bludgeons Windies to win

When Sanath Jayasuriya blasted them around in 1996, we thought this was it, power play at its fiercest. Then came Lance Klusener with his mighty club, during the 1999 World Cup -- and we figured we'd seen everything.

By the evidence of what I saw today during Ricardo Powell's amazing innings of today, in course of which he clubbed 8 incredible sixes (15 for the tournament, to give him the Man of the Series award in addition to Man of the Match), I couldn't help thinking, you ain't seen anything yet, baby... this guy is 20, he is just into his 5th ODI and if he can hit this hard and keep his temperament this solid, bowlers around the world are going to be hunting for cover in the heck of a hurry.

During this tournament, Tony Cozier, in the television commentary box, brought up the parallel with Viv Richards. I'm not sure that isn't a touch premature, at the least, at this point -- but the similarities are apparent. In the great sweep of his shoulders. In the visible power of his well muscled forearms. In an attitude that seeks complete domination from the first ball he faces. In a very quick eye, and instinctive shot selection.

Powell ain't the second Richards. But future generations could well be talking of wannabe big-hitters as the next Powell. One thing is for sure -- today was his first ODI century, but it sure ain't going to be the last we see from this gent.

The replayed final began with Brian Lara calling right, and opting to chase. His argument was that his quick bowlers could use the moisture in the track early on, to good effect. Interestingly, Tendulkar said that he too would have batted first on winning the toss -- his theory being that the track would help spin later in the day. Both teams went in with no changes to the lineup -- which, from the West Indian point of view, made sense since the side had clicked as a unit right through this tournament. And from an Indian point of view? The weak links stood out -- Vinod Kambli with the bat; an off form Anil Kumble with the ball.

India was further handicapped by the loss, in the first over, of Sachin Tendulkar. Walsh, in helpful conditions, produced a brilliant first over to the right hander, late seam movement keeping the Indian captain defending. The last ball of the over, unlike the previous five, was short and lifting outside off. The temptation was irresistible, and Tendulkar went for a shot he plays often at the early stage of his innings -- going on his toes to swat the ball over the slips-point region down to backward point. Only, this one kicked just that bit higher than anticipated, which meant the ball went higher in the air and wider of point than the batsman intended. Bryan Hendy covered the flight of the ball well, then did some impromptu juggling -- to his credit, though, he kept his eye on the ball all the time, and held on the fifth try.

Sadagopan Ramesh at the other end seemed to be feeling the weight of his two dismissals, in his last two innings, caught on the uppish drive on the off by the fielder at short cover. Lara, never one to miss a trick, preyed on that state of mind by posting his nemesis, Nehemiah Perry, right up front at short cover so Ramesh could see him every time he looked up.

With the offside shut, Ramesh tried the onside. He does, however, have a problem on the pull, since he tends to get under the ball and hit up, rather than the prescribed fashion of getting on top of it and hitting down with the wrists turning to keep the ball along the ground. The ball from King was a nothing delivery, short on off, Ramesh went for the pull without however moving his back foot into the shot, and picked out Lara at mid on quite easily, hitting with the toe of the bat. India 27/2 into the 10th over, and it seemed like curtains.

And then came the recovery, thanks to a 78-run partnership between Dravid and Ganguly. Through this series, Ganguly's form has seemed a shade patchy. Here, on the day, he got it all back together, coming up with a free-flowing innings after a slow start during which he seemed to be looking to play himself back into touch. When Ganguly is in form, it is most noticeable in his on side play, which attains a certain fluency, and in the confidence with which he checks his shots in the V and races the singles, running with the shot.

This phase also produced, for the connoisseur, a bit of interesting captaincy from Lara. For the first three balls of an over, the Windies skipper brought the field right in, blocking the singles and forcing the batsman to push to the field. From the fourth ball on, he pushed one fielder back to sweep, on either side of the wicket. What he was doing was, putting pressure on the batsman by forcing him to play three dot balls, then, at the point when the batsman would be looking to break the shackles by hitting hard, pushing a fielder out to cover the hit. A nice little game of cat and mouse, that. And the West Indies fielders backed their captain up with agile, at times electric fielding -- just yet another sign that the side, which seemed down and out in South Africa early this year, is now on the mend and threatening to get back to their earlier winning ways.

Ganguly meanwhile looked in such commanding form that Lara was forced to keep his pace bowlers on longer than he normally would have. The alternative was to use the spinning options of Adams and Perry -- but that would have been playing into the hands of Ganguly, one of the cleanest hitters in the V when faced with spinners. So Lara left it as late as he could -- and ironically, it was spin that actually caused Ganguly's downfall, as the batsman went down the track and hit Perry clean as a whistle, over long on. Dillon, who had another forgettable outing with the ball, made amends as he raced from wide long on, then flung himself headlong and took a blinder.

That brought Kambli to the wicket -- and back to the hut in a trice. When Kambli is struggling for touch, he tends to look awkward against pace (those who have been following his career will recall that Kambli was at the height of his pomp when Walsh led the Windies to India in 1994, and that it was this side that bounced him out of his big-scoring trot and, effectively, out of the national reckoning). It is when he struggles against spin, though, that you realise he is having serious problems -- and on the day, there was something amateurish in the way he lunged forward to Perry without reading the flight, and found himself stranded by one that beat him for flight and turn to present Jacobs with an easy stumping. Rather strange to think that Kambli will take the flight to Toronto -- to continue, by available evidence, to embarass himself and the national selectors in equal measure.

At 108/4 in the 29th over, India seemed in a tailspin. Nikhil Chopra was pushed ahead of Robin Singh in the order, and on the chat that accompanies our live commentary, I noticed a tendency to impute that to lack of faith in the latter. I suspect that is not the case, though. Robin, at the death, can be brilliant -- he runs hard, he hits hard, and over the short sprint, turns the game to good effect. However, with 20 overs to go, the risk of sending him out, and losing the last of the recognised batsmen, was too great. By promoting Chopra, the team had the option of seeing off a few more overs and bringing Singh in at a time more conducive to his brand of cricket -- and in the process, here, India discovered in Chopra another batting option.

The off spinner's strengths with the bat are that he is quite calm temperamentally, doesnt seem fazed by a dot ball or three, gets well into line without backing away from the quick stuff, and plays in the V on both sides of the wicket. Also, he uses his wits, pushes into gaps and is alert to the possibility of quick singles. On the day, he produced a little gem, starting off with a series of singles, and as his eye got set, opening out into some sparkling strokeplay especially against the spinners. 61 off 60 was an invaluable hand -- but the real value came in the fact that he took the onus of run-scoring on himself, and thus eased the pressure on Dravid, allowing the latter to bat through the innings without taking undue risks.

Meanwhile, Dravid finally got his form back. In earlier innings, he has shown a tendency to get rattled when the pace of run scoring drops. And in that frame of mind, he has tended to play with bat away from body -- an uncharacteristic and, for him, fatal method. Today, he reverted to World Cup mode, concentrating on just keeping one end going. He was outscored by first Ganguly, then Chopra, but never let it bother him, concentrating on playing his game his way, and playing anchor to perfection with a classical 103 unbeaten off 124 deliveries that really proved the spine of the Indian innings.

India finished on 254/6 in the allotted 50 overs -- and when you look at the scoreboard, questions could be asked about Lara's wisdom, or lack thereof, in allowing his spinners an extended bowl at the death, when first Chopra, then Dravid, made merry at their expense. Perry and Adams between them bowled 17 overs, 7 more than they needed to, and gave away 110 runs. Which, on the face of it, seems like captaincy error. However, the hidden factor there was that thanks to the four-pronged pace attack Lara was leading, the Windies were hopelessly behind on the over rate and had he not used those extra overs of spin, the Windies could well have finished so badly behind as to be docked four, five overs on the chase. And that could have made a huge difference.

Walsh deserves special mention, meanwhile. The veteran bowler seems to have learnt the secret of eternal youth -- the years roll by, his cricketing obituary gets written and revised, and yet he runs in with that same easy action, bowls with that same mix of guile and venom, and returns the kind of performance (10-2-19-1?!) that leaves his younger, pacier contemporaries in the shade. It is interesting to see the Windies board preserving a bowler who is becoming something of a public monument, by using him -- and his partner in crime, Curtley Ambrose -- sparingly, playing Walsh here, letting him rest while Ambrose takes over in Toronto... This kind of handling could add a year or two more to their bowling lives -- and that should delight the connoisseurs, if not opposing batsmen.

For India, the trick was to bowl the first ten overs well -- and Prasad and Mohanty surpassed all expectations with a superb performacne that had the Windies struggling at 8/1 in 5, 26/1 in 10 overs. Campbell is superb off the back foot, but when brought forward and made to drive, he tends to look rather ordinary. Prasad exploited this by bowling a full length and repeated beating the bat outside line of off. And Mohanty, who seems to be growing in confidence with every outing (wasted, of course, since the selectors will probably relegate him to the bench once Agarkar declares his fitness, which does seem a pity) hit the perfect line right from the outset, added to the pressure and finally got the breakthrough. Unable to get the ball away on the off side, Campbell tried to go across his stumps and swing to leg. Mohanty's habitual full length, and late swing in to line of off and middle, trapped the batsman plumb.

Mohanty, who seems to have a knack of picking up wickets (he had 6 in two games leading up to this one) then struck another big one when he frustrated Ridley Jacobs into getting out. The free scoring batsman was chafing under the restraint imposed on him by both seamers, and with Adams at the other end completely strokeless, the pressure kept mounting. Jacobs pet shot in the flick over midwicket, and Mohanty fed him one on that line, tempting the batsman into the heave. Jacobs obliged, the ball swung in late, went through the shot and took out the off stump -- a well planned dismissal, Tendulkar having just before that ball taken the fielder at deep midwicket out in order to give Jacobs the temptation.

That brought Lara to the crease, and the Windies skipper seemed hell bent on turning the tide. The West Indies at that point were behind on the run rate. Further, thanks to the tight opening spells by both new ball bowlers, Tendulkar was afforded the luxury of being able to attack, with three close in fielders for both Adams and Lara. For the Windies captain, setting a close field is a challenge he can't resist, and four flowing fours resulted as he tried to blast the close field away. Chopra, who came under some tap, held his nerve however, and tossed one up outside off. Lara went on one knee, looking for the lofted pull-sweep over wide long on, but this ball was flighted more, fuller in length and turned in sharply off the deck to take the thick inner edge onto off stump.

In came Chanderpaul, a fluent player of spin, and again, the Indians kept up the pressure with a slip, a silly point, a silly mid off to the left handers, the fielders staying on their toes and backing the bowlers very well. Batting, thus, was far from easy and when the Windies got to 83/4 in 20 (India 75/2 at that point) there seemed to be only one result possible.

Adams struggled throughout his stay, and finally succumbed in the 17th over when he first went forward, then rocked back to Chopra and tried to cut. The ball curved in, cramped the batsman on the shot and Ganguly, at slip, took a superb reflexive catch.

That brought Ricardo Powell to the crease. The batsman had two slices of luck early on. Kumble in his first over managed to make one kick. Powell, who has never played him before, misread the flipper outside off and went for the cut, was beaten for the pace of the ball off the wicket, and managed only to under edge. A regular keeper would have known to stay down for the shot. Dravid, though doing a commendable job keeping after batting for almost the entire Indian innings (he seemed to be experiencing stiffness, visible in the way he kept stretching repeatedly during his stint with the gloves), is no regular, he doesnt have the technique of the class keeper -- here, he went up, the edge flashed past him and too low to grasp, and Powell had a let off.

The second slice of luck came when Kumble, obviously irritated by that let off, promptly let him have two short ones. Which, when Powell is on strike, is asking for disaster. Two hefty blows, and Powell was off the blocks and India effectively out of the game. Kumble's first spell went for 4-0-27-0, and the pressure maintained till then was eased, and India never got back into the game from that point.

Kumble did get an unexpected reward in his second spell, when he produced a dolly of a full toss. Chanderpaul, who till then had batted with clinical perfection, playing the spinners with good footwork and stroking the singles to let Powell do the big-hitting, climbed into that one, got a bit over-eager and managed to pick out Chopra at long on, to reduce Windies to 128/5 after 26 overs.

Nehemiah Perry came out to join his junior from Jamaica -- and really made the difference. The off spinner is a handy bat and he seemed, here, to be playing with the realisation that there was no batting to come after this partnership. Perry put his head down, and concentrated on conserving his wicket. He didn't get hassled by the tight bowling -- but then, he didn't need to. Because at the other end, Powell was playing the innings of a lifetime.

The most noticeable thing about the way Powell played was that he never went completely berserk. He would pick length and line early, and when he decided to hit, went through with enormous power -- 7 of his eight sixes, thus, cleared the ground and put pedestrains on the surrounding roads at risk. But in between, he calmly played out the good balls -- and on the odd occasion when he seemed to be getting overexuberant, Perry was quickly down the track to calm his junior, and goad him on into extending his innings.

The Indians tried pretty much everything -- and were batted out of the game by a bright new talent blazing at the top of his form and confidence. Tendulkar applied the pressure right through the first 30 overs with close catchers -- but given Powell's batting, the only one who had any chance of taking a catch was the guy sitting on a park bench some 20 feet outside the ground. And yes, Tendulkar seemed to have missed one possible bet -- while he did try Ganguly (13 runs came in the one over) to break through, he left Mohanty unused after a great first spell of 7-0-26-2. And ironically, it was Mohanty who, brought back in the 46th over, took out Powell with his first ball, making one swing in from outside off to middle -- the batsman looked to hit over long on, the swing beat the shot and he managed only to hit it straight up, and down Dravid's throat.

The wicket, though, came way too late to do anyone any good, and Perry with Bryan for company calmly saw his side home, with 2.2 overs and four wickets to spare.

At the end, the balance sheet made interesting reading: the West Indies have to be marked up as a side most definitely on the mend. Lara is back in control, the side seems united under him, the regulars (with the possible exception of Adams) are finding form and touch, and in Powell, they have discovered a match-winner of awesome proportions.

The Indian balance sheet is an antithesis: There are problems with the opening. Problems in the middle order. A problem with the man the team relies on to keep the pressure up with the ball. And a problem in the mind -- at this point, the Indians just don't seem to believe they can win; and without that self-belief, which Tendulkar's return to the helm has obviously not infused in the team, everything else becomes an academic exercise.

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