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DEAR REDIFF

It's just not cricket at the Bourda

Prem Panicker

History probably records other instances of a fielding side doing what the West Indies did today - especially in the post-tea session of the first day of the fifth and final Cable and Wireless Test at the Bourda in Georgetown, Guyana.

Personally, though, I have never seen anything like this happen - and that, I guess, is something to be thankful for, if only because I can think of nothing more calculated to kill all interest in the game of cricket.

Briefly put, Shivnairaine Chanderpaul, under the instruction of his captain Courtney Walsh (and Walsh had to have had a hand in it, because it was he who set the field and kept the bowler on) bowled 18 overs in succession from the resumption of play after tea, to close of play. Every single one of these overs was bowled around the wicket, with seven men on the onside - and almost every ball was a foot or two wide of leg stump.

This is not merely negative tactics but, I am sorry to say, a cynical manipulation of rules. And it is worse - it is an act of bad faith towards the spectators who pay good money (and it pays to remember that it is this money, these spectators, who pay the cricketers their wages). For no person in his right mind will pay good money to watch the kind of stuff Chanderpaul, under the benevolent gaze of his captain, trotted out today.

Negative bowling, it will be termed. Legitimate tactics by a team one up in the series, and looking to draw to keep that lead and take the series, it will be argued.

Let us examine that argument a bit. Sure, a team that is leading 1-0 in a five Test series with just one Test to play has every right to play for a draw. Does it, however, have an equal right to make a mockery of the game that feeds them?

Ambrose bowled tight and didn't give anything away. Walsh did the same. So did Franklyn Rose. These three bowlers did it without having to bowl way down the leg side - they bowled good length and line, and forced the batsmen to defend. And no one can quarrel with that - that is good, fighting cricket.

Then why this, from a team that is also capable of the other?

Why this, from the West Indies, the ultimate entertainers of world cricket?

Why? It is a question that becomes more and more inexplicable, the longer you examine the situation. India were a mere 38/1 for one at lunch. 119/2 at tea. And while on the subject, it pays to remember that this is in part thanks to the fact that the West Indies themselves dropped three sitters in the field. In fact, if Ambrose had held on to an absolute dolly of a return chance when Sachin Tendulkar was 11 and India 80/2, India would have been in a much worse plight, more so as they had, for this match, sacrificed the extra batsman in favour of an additional bowler, and so had only five genuine batsmen in the lineup.

This in turn means that if Tendulkar's - or Dravid's - wicket had been taken, the West Indies would then only need to get rid of the out of form Azharuddin before exposing the tail. And yet, surprisingly, no attempt was made to force the breakthrough, no attempt made to take that wicket. Just over after over of the most appalling bowling seen in recent memory - to the extent that even the second new ball was foregone, Walsh preferring to keep Chanderpaul on instead.

It may be clever strategy. It certainly was not cricket.

Back to the beginning - the wicket at the Bourda is flat, grassless and even in pace. True, it could break, begin taking spin towards the end of the third day. But though much has been made of this, and of the fact that this gives India an advantage, it needs to be kept in mind that spin alone is not going to give the touring side a win - because if the pitch gets slower at the same time, then batsmen have all the time in the world to go fully forward or fully back and play the turning ball with ease.

The West Indies made no change to the side that played the previous one. India, for its part, made two changes. Sidhu came back to the side in place of Laxman, while Jadeja retained his opener's slot. And Ganguly was dropped in favour of Dodda Ganesh, India obviously preferring to go in with five bowlers, to make a flat out bid to win.

Interestingly, between the time the teams were announced and the time the West Indies took the field after Sachin Tendulkar won the toss and elected to bat, Roland Holder was struck in the mouth during fielding practise. The rules dictate that no substitution of the named eleven is possible if the player sustains an injury before play actually begins - so the Windies would have had to take the field with just ten players. However, Walsh asked Tendulkar for permission to make a substitution, and the Indian captain promptly agreed - for which he deserves kudos, for this is the spirit in which the game is meant to be played, never mind the rule book.

India opened with Jadeja and Sidhu. Jadeja, unfortunately, is no Test-level opener - and his deficiencies in defensive technique were all too embarassingly on display today as first Ambrose, then Walsh continually turned him inside out, and beat the edge with regulation awayswingers. The truest indicator of how far Jadeja found himself out of his depth, on this placid batting track, is seen in the stats - 8 runs off 68 deliveries with one four. Finally, Bishop ended his embarassment by finally finding the edge and having Browne take a regulation catch behind the wicket, to take India in to lunch at 38/1.

In this period, what is more, two simple catches went down, one off each opener. Sidhu, meanwhile, batted as he normally does - rather tentative at the outset, increasingly positive as he got his eye in and started middling the ball.

In fact, India's scoreline would have been a lot healthier at lunch if the two batsmen, faced with some accurate bowling by Rose, Ambrose and Walsh and some wide-of-off-stump stuff from Bishop, had looked for placements to get the singles. They did not, however - in fact, time after time the ball rolled slowly into the outfield, and both batsmen stayed rooted to their crease, not bothering to run the very available singles.

This is a problem you will face when you keep shuffling openers around - partners, especially in this most crucial slot, need to bat with each other, develop an understanding of each other's calling and running, to be able to work the singles. These two haven't played together throughout this long season, and the rust showed.

There seemed to be a greater sense of urgency after lunch, with even the normally obdurate Rahul Dravid going for his shots. But just when Sidhu looked to be really set and ready for the big one, he allowed a moment's impatience to undo all his own good work. Bishop had, all along, been bowling very wide of off stump. Sidhu, who was beginning to time his shots, obviously felt a shade impatient against a line of attack where he couldn't put bat to ball. So when Walsh came back to bowl, he slashed a cut at a ball too close to the body to afford the shot, and Hooper held the resultant outer edge to send Sidhu back to the pavilion for 36 off 104 deliveries with six fours.

That brought Tendulkar to the wicket - and in his very first over, he blazed a cover drive and followed up with a square drive, both fours, off Walsh. Interestingly, just before taking strike, he and Dravid had an earnest conversation in mid-pitch - and immediately after that Dravid, who had till then been playing his shots, dropped anchor.

The gameplan seemed to be that Tendulkar would go for the bowling, and Dravid would hold the other end up. And it almost came unstuck when Ambrose, coming in for Walsh, bowled a slower ball - something of a rarity in the bowler's repertoire - which Tendulkar drove at too early, popping the simplest of catches back at the bowler. Ambrose, perhaps overeager to get rid of Tendulkar, snatched at the ball and made a meal of it.

At the time, the Indian captain was 11, the Indian score 80/2. A wicket then, and the cat would really have been among the pigeons. In the event, all that the life did was to make Tendulkar, who looked too casual at the beginning of his innings, to concentrate - and from then on, he never played a false stroke.

With his strokes working well and Dravid rotating strike with the well placed singles, India went from 38/2 at lunch to 119/2 at tea - and it began to look as though the Windies bowling was in real trouble.

And then came the masterstroke, immediately after tea - the introduction of Chanderpaul and the seven-strong leg side field.

True, it is the batting side that wants to win this, so the onus is on them to carry the fight to the opposition. And they did try, to give them credit - in one over, the third of the spell, Dravid came dancing down the track to ondrive for four and, when Chanderpaul bowled one ball on leg and middle stump, danced down again to lift clean over mid off for a six.

The result was that Chanderpaul began bowling even wider outside leg stump - and kept it up for the rest of a thoroughly pointless evening.

At a pinch, one could find excuses for that sort of bowling in the second innings - if, say, India had got a lead on the first, and was pressing to put up a match winning score. But on the very first day of a Test match? Begs the question, what then do the next four days have in store by way of tactics?

In the event, India went in at stumps with the score on 194/2, Rahul Dravid batting on 71 off 217 deliveries with six fours and a six, while Sachin Tendulkar was unbeaten on 62 off 156 with seven fours.

In the process, playing in his 14th Test, Dravid crossed the 1000-run mark, acquired at an impressive average of 52.6 with eight fifties and one century - and seems to be underlining his growing reputation as the Mr Reliable of contemporary Indian cricket.

What, meanwhile, of the bowling? Somehow, nothing went right for Walsh. Rose, always the most accurate of the Windies quicks, had a chest problem that kept him out of the field for an hour and a half. When he came back, Walsh himself went in with a backache. And by the time Walsh returned, Bishop managed to give his ankle a twist and needed to go in for treatment.

Ambrose alone remained fit and willing - but the only time he looked likely to break through was, first, when he bowled a superb first spell that had Jadeja on tenterhooks, and second, when he produced the ball that induced Tendulkar's only false stroke of the day. For the rest, it was impeccable, but non-threatening, bowling at something like three quarters of his normal pace.

So there we have it, the situation after day one. Walsh will probably claim the new ball first thing tomorrow - the one they are now using, all of 90 overs old, has nothing left in it for the Windies quicks. Be interesting to see how they bowl with the second new ball, keeping in mind that if they break this partnership early, they expose Azhar and the tail. Be interesting, too, to see what Walsh does if he fails to get the breakthrough - will Chanderpaul bowl from the morning session tomorrow?

For India, the task is obvious - somehow, some way, they have to start scoring rapidly against this attack, irrespective of the line it takes. The target will be to put up a total in excess of 400, and still be in a position to declare by say an hour before close tomorrow.

Having said that, if everyone's favourite part-time leg-spinner, Shivnaraine Chanderpaul, has anything to say about it, India will probably reach the target by tea-time - on the fifth day.