Sidhu comes good with a ton as India dominate on day two

Prem Panicker

If your heart is in the right place, perhaps it doesn't matter too much if your feet are not?

That, at least, could have been the thought that carried Navjot Singh Sidhu through a few nervy, edge-ridden early overs. And once he got a stroke or two in the middle of his bat, Navjot Sidhu gained in confidence, gritted it out and, towards the end, stroked his way freely to a comeback century that, just incidentally, saw India end day two in a position of strength.

For Sidhu, the denouement could not have been better timed. Ever since his walkout midway through the England tour, nothing has gone right for the Indian opener. A suspension of 50 days by way of punishment, a patchy and all too brief comeback to the national side, and an indifferent domestic season meant that if he found himself in the side to the West Indies, it was purely by default. The national selectors had by then run out of openers to try out. A dismal first Test at Jamaica, and this was pretty much his last chance before the team management dropped him in favour, perhaps, of Ajay Jadeja.

To Sidhu's credit, he grabbed the chance with both hands, withstood early rough weather and once his confidence was restored and he shook the lead out of his cricket boots, blossomed back into the strokeplaying opener he used to be in his heyday.

But this, I suspect, is getting the Indian cart ahead of the West Indian horse. To get the day in right order, West Indies resumed on 239/7, Holder batting 71, Rose batting 13. And first thing in the morning, Sachin Tendulkar claimed the overdue new ball, handed it to Kuruvilla and Prasad, and stood back to watch developments.

There weren't any.

Both Holder and Rose, on a wicket playing nice and easy and against bowling that at best can be termed brisk medium, batted with calm assurance. True, both Prasad and Kuruvilla beat the outer edge enough times to keep the Indian slip fielders interested, but nothing came of it all and after the first hour, Windies had progressed by another 35 runs without further loss. Holder was more circumspect than yesterday, Rose however looked to have gained in assurance and, on the basis of his performance today - well in line to everything, never hurried, never tempted into indiscretion - should have made a strong claim to come ahead of Ambrose, at least, in the batting order.

Tendulkar rotated his three main bowlers through that session, bringing Kumble on for Prasad, then putting Prasad on for Kuruvilla, while the batsmen continued to accumulate.

The game was rapidly running away from India when Tendulkar suddenly remembered that he had a part-time bowler who could bowl gentle medium pace and make the ball wobble about a bit in the air. Such as Ganguly have enormous utility value, and it is strange to see him being so badly underutilised by an Indian side not exactly brimming with bowling options.

Ganguly came on - and brought with him frustration. Trouble with his pace - "pace" being a misnomer for a style of bowling where the ball appears to take ages to get from one end of the track to the other - the problem he presents to batsmen is that they have to hit really hard to even getting him off the playing square. And add a knack of suddenly producing a perfect leg cutter on off stump, and the problems multiply.

Holder visibly chafed as stroke after stroke trickled to the fielder, and the century he seemed set to make stayed tantalisingly out of reach. Deciding to try and get the runs off Joshi who was operating at the other end, Holder (91 off 238 balls with seven fours) aimed a flick to leg off a full length ball, played all over the line and back went the middle stump. Windies 289/8.

Out came Walsh (0 off 3 balls), and Ganguly produced another one of those slow-motion deliveries that drifted down the track, drew the batsman forward, and left him just enough to take the outer edge en route to Mongia. Windies 290/9.

Rose, who till then had been batting with admirable restraint, realised that debutant Mervyn Dillon was not a partner to ride the river with, so off he went after Joshi. One huge hoik had Prasad running back at mid on to hold high overhead - only, the fielder fractionally overstepped the boundary line and a six was the result. Next ball, Joshi bowled one in the slot for Rose (34 off 85 with two fours and two sixes) who drove - straight as a string to Dravid at cover, and Windies were all out for 296, leaving new boy Dillon undefeated on nought.

The bowling performance was pretty much the same as yesterday, the medium quicks accurate but not penetrative, Kumble not getting turn with a ball just a few overs old and still hard and shiny. The interesting figures were those of Ganguly - 5-3-3-1 and Joshi - 22.3-3-79-3. The left arm spinner today didn't toss the ball quite as high and invitingly as he did yesterday, and both wicket-taking balls were genuinely well thought out. Meanwhile, Ganguly's figures at a time when the higher rated bowlers were being taken for easy runs begs the question - why does he get to bowl once in about six innings or so?

That question promises to remain one of those great unsolved mysteries of all time - sort of like the Sphinx, or the secrets of the Pyramids.

Meanwhile, lunch was brought forward 10 minutes on the fall of the last Windies wicket, and India began the second session with Laxman and Sidhu facing Ambrose and Walsh.

Ambrose's first ball was short of length and outside off. Perhaps this is what led Laxman to believe that the second ball would also be short - in any event, he was neither fully front or back when the inswinging yorker bowled at express pace homed in on him, bounced just ahead of his bootlaces and thudded into the pad bang in front of middle stump for umpire Steve Randell to send him on his way, India 0/1. Laxman compounded the error of footwork by trying to play across the line to leg - always risky that early in an innings, without having guaged the pace of the wicket.

That brought Rahul Dravid out to the middle to face the third ball. And these days, for the Indian side, that is becoming the most reassuring of spectacles - Dravid walking out to bat. From ball one, his feet and body move into line, his bat is in front of the body and the defense is rock-solid. The team has given him the job of anchoring the innings, holding one end up so the others can bat around him, and Dravid has taken that role pretty seriously, by all indications. Very choosy about the shots he will indulge himself in, preferring to leave everything outside off stump, concentrating on keeping his end up and not worrying too much about the rate of scoring. Pitch short, though, as first Rose, then Walsh tried to do, and he rocks into the pull or the hook in a flash - and neither bowler tried the ploy a second time after seeing the way the ball disappeared at the first go.

Sidhu, meanwhile, appeared to have accidentally got a tonne of lead wedged in his cricketing boots - his feet just refused to move. Time and again he edged short of the slips or past them for fours to third man, time and again he poked at the ball with bat away from body and found the ball shooting through the gap and over the stumps. But each time, Sidhu to his credit shook his head angrily at himself, and readied for another go.

Old-timers are fond of saying that if you want to make runs, you have to first stay out there in the middle - and for Sidhu in the first hour of his innings, survival - often by the narrowest of margins - was definitely the sole priority.

Then the tiring bowlers gave him a couple of half volleys which he gratefully thumped through cover for his first fours in front of the wicket, and suddenly it was a different ball game. The feet movements became more positive, the bat was in line and the strokes right off the meat of the bat. And true to form, when Walsh gave Hooper a bowl just before tea, Sidhu played defensively to the first two as though he were proving a point, then came down the wicket in trademark fashion to hoik him up and over midwicket for a six.

Almost on the stroke of tea, Sidhu - perhaps braced by a spanking extracover drive off the previous ball - drove at a Rose delivery wide of off stump, got the thick outer edge and Williams at third slip got both hands to the head high catch and floored it.

And that was it, the last blemish. After tea, Sidhu looked more like the man who was averaging a good 40+ in Tests and one-dayers and with Dravid accumulating his singles and twos as and when opportunity afforded and shutting one end up, the opening batsman blossomed. Strokes, right off the middle of the bat, flowed on both sides of the wicket and appropriately enough, a lofted extra cover drive off Hooper followed by a glanced single to square brought up his 100. Not, perhaps, the best of his seven Test 100s - but in terms of what it means to Sidhu and to an Indian side that has struggled to find an opener who could top 50, the most valuable of them all.

The session between tea and close of play was totally that of the two batsmen. No alarms, no problems, just a steady progress that saw off bowler after bowler and took the total to a comfortable 171/1 at stumps. And how often in the recent past has India ended the day on that sort of score, especially after losing its first wicket for nothing?

For the West Indies, no joy. Ambrose was incisive as usual, Walsh in a late spell towards close bothered both Dravid and Sidhu with enormous breakbacks, but neither Rose, India's bugbear in the Jamaica Test, nor the debutant Dillon (nice and pacy and, like Rose, relying on using the crease to get variations to line) showed any sign of being able to go past the defence of these two.

At close, then, India 171/1 in reply to West Indies 296 all out. Dravid batting 57 off 179 balls with four fours, yet another rock solid performance in the number three slot (Dravid's scores in his last five Test innings hugely impressive, actually - 148 and 81 at the Wanderers against South Africa, 43 and 51 not out in the first Test at Jamaica, and now this), and Sidhu walking off to a deserved ovation, on 102 off 212 balls with 11 fours and the six.

It's a tempting proposition to begin, at this point, to speculate on the possibility of an Indian win. More so given the fact that in the evening of day two, the wicket kept throwing up little puffs of dust each time the quick bowlers hit the deck hard, indicating that this wicket is crumbling and will be a spinner's dream by close tomorrow.

But India has a lot of hard work to do before even thinking on those lines - and the first priority for the not out batsmen will be to see the first hour off tomorrow. Do that without letting the Windies quicks break through, and that will provide the sort of platform from which the likes of Tendulkar, Azharuddin and Ganguly can take charge.

Not to say that those three strokeplayers are going to have a blast - the ball is definitely not coming on, so they will need to wait for it, get runs more through deft placements with the harder hit off only the deliveries straying in line and length. But that is for later - for now, the touring Indians will probably sleep a whole lot easier after the best second wicket partnership - 171 runs now and counting - that this side has seen in an awful long time.