Late Wickets put Windies in Control

Sun, May 19, '02

by VENKY MALY

The second day of the fifth and decisive test between the West Indies and India at the Sabina Park continued to provide cricket fans with plenty to watch. The first day ended with West Indies at 287/4, with Hooper and Chanderpaul at the crease. It seemed as if the West Indies had the platform for a large score, but if anything over 400 is defined as a large total, then at least two batsmen had to play reasonably long innings...

Uncharacteristically for this series, Carl Hooper was not to be one of those batsmen. Very early in the day's play, Srinath seemed to think he had something to gain by testing Carl Hooper with a series of short pitched deliveries. Hooper ducked out of the way of most of them, but to one that rose well above his head, he was tempted to hook, and at the last minute, decided not to play the shot.

Sadly for Hooper, the bat was still in the air, and the ball struck it and ballooned into the air. Rahul Dravid at first slip ran behind the keeper, kicked over the helmet, but still managed to take the catch.

It was a rather innocuous bouncer, but Hooper paid the price for being casual.

Hooper's dismissal brought Jacobs to the crease. Attacking and unorthodox, on his day, Jacobs can take the game away from the opposition. Today, he did just that. Srinath continued his tactic of using the short pitched delivery, and Jacobs apparently decided to take the attack back to Srinath. In one over, he got a bouncer from Srinath, to which his reply was to loft the ball over the bowler's head for a couple of runs. Srinath bounced again, and the delivery after that was hit one bounce into the boundary at long-off. Srinath tried another bouncer without effect, and the reply to that was a straight driven six.

Srinath was promptly taken off the attack after that over, and the West Indies, who were 292/5 at Hooper's dismissal found themselves not merely shaking off the pressure, but racing along at 336/5. Chanderpaul settled down to support Jacobs, and a total of over 400 suddenly looked very likely.

Harbhajan bowled very well today, as he did yesterday. He bowled over the wicket to the left handed Jacobs with a packed leg side field, and turned several deliveries a fair bit from the left hander's leg stump. Jacobs, true to his style, responded to Harbhajan with resounding strokeplay. On more than one occasion, the ball was hit with the spin over long off. One such shot gave Jacobs his second six.

Unorthodoxy being his forte, Jacobs did not hesitate to hit Harbhajan against the spin either, boundaries resulting to midwicket and to square leg. As Jacobs raised his bat to the cheers that greeted his second fifty, it was clear that the Indian attack and the captain seemed rather surprised by this late assault. As Adam Gilchrist has done so often for Australia in recent years, Jacobs played a very attacking innings just when the bowling side thought they were going to bundle out the tail, and the game had swung completely the way of the West Indies.

Harbhajan's persistence, and Jacobs' repeated attempts to force the ball through the largely open offside field met a predictable end when a quicker delivery was inside edged onto pad, and then the stumps. Jacobs scored 59 invaluable runs, with seven fours and the two sixes. After his marathon 43 in the previous test, Dillon reverted to form with a duck. A quicker delivery from Harbhajan struck him plumb in front.

In previous tests, Chanderpaul did get some criticisms for not opening out and scoring more runs when the highly accomplished batsmen who form the West Indian tail were with him. On this occasion, he did attempt to do so, and hit a couple of very well timed boundaries off Srinath. Srinath finally had him driving on the rise to a delivery that was angled away, and Ratra took a regulation catch. To everybody's surprise, the umpire ruled it not out. The poor decision only cost India another four runs, as Srinath promptly bowled a similar delivery, and got the same result, with the umpire in agreement this time.

Chanderpaul scored 58, but his innings was worth far more, since over 140 runs were scored when he was at the crease. The assurance he displayed gave Jacobs the opportunity to play a swashbuckling innings at the other end, and this ultimately resulted in the West Indian total going beyond 400.

Pedro Collins and Adam Sanford played innings straight out of the tailender's copybook, with Pedro taking the honours for a unique dismissal, edging a bouncer to first slip off his helmet. When they were dismissed, West Indies had scored 422. Harbhajan Singh was the best bowler for India, taking 5 wickets in an innings for the first time abroad, and at the same time reaching a personal landmark of 100 test wickets during this innings.

The total gave Hooper plenty of runs to attack the Indian batting with, and since the runs had been scored very quickly, plenty of time as well.

When the Indian innings began, Mervyn Dillon bowled a fast and furious spell, and had both Das and Jaffer in trouble. Das was quite lucky to survive an lbw appeal, and Jaffer got a very good delivery that he could not but edge to Jacobs. Dravid came out and was dismissed soon after, trapped plumb in front by an offcutter that kept marginally low, but also seemed to beat him for pace. This was a very big wicket for the West Indies, since Dravid tends to anchor the Indian innings, just as Chanderpaul does for the West Indies.

The critical part of the Indian innings began when Sachin Tendulkar walked out to join Das. In the past four innings, Tendulkar had failed, each time being dismissed before he had settled in.

This time, it looked as if Tendulkar had made a conscious decision to play his shots. Tendulkar opened the scoring with a beautifully timed shot off his pads for four. This was followed by a lovely off drive, which got him another boundary. Pedro Collins was brought on, and Tendulkar hit a pull that rocketed to the square leg boundary.

Much though his wicket meant to West Indian chances in this test, the Jamaican crowd could not have helped but admire the timing, power, balance and elegance in each of the four boundaries that Tendulkar played early in his innings. If one needed reasons to believe why Tendulkar is rated so high in world cricket, those four boundaries provided the testimony. Almost before one realised it, he was on 22 off just 16 deliveries, and looking very good indeed.

Dillon bowled a couple of deliveries that screamed past the outside edge of Tendulkar's bat and went to Jacobs, but it was Pedro Collins again who got Tendulkar to slow down. A dropped return catch and an lbw appeal in one over saw parity return to the game. The dropped catch was a very difficult one, with Collins needing to change direction and bend very low to take the catch. Pedro being the fielder he is, should have no difficulty forgiving himself for dropping that catch.

Hooper brought on Adam Sanford, rather late, considering that Sanford is the quickest of the four bowlers on view. Almost immediately, Sanford was warned for running onto the danger area, and as a result, seemed to deliver most of his deliveries from the edge of the crease. This is something Sanford needs avoid, because this factor, coupled with his length, which always short of a good length, almost rules out any chances of lbw appeals going in his favour.

Tendulkar took one boundary off Sanford's first over. In the next over, he tried to drive a delivery that was pitched at yorker length, but wide of off stump, and edged it back onto his stumps. It was not a delivery that deserved a wicket, and Tendulkar looked very upset as he walked off. The scorecard will read Tendulkar b Sanford for 41, but it was really Tendulkar's bad form in this series that caused him to reach for that delivery in his eagerness to further dominate the West Indian bowling.

Das had been lucky with at least a couple of lbw decisions so far, and was beginning to play an innings that would help him end a very disappointing tour on a more positive note. With Tendulkar's dismissal, Cuffy, whose first spell was not as well directed as it usually is, returned to the attack. He bowled an incoming delivery to Das that struck the batsman low on the pad, and the umpire upheld a very strong appeal. Das was not plumb lbw, but the ball would have hit leg stump.

The score was now 86/4 and Sabina Park was alive with excitement. Another wicket here would have taken the game completely away from India, with even a follow on looking a distinct possibility. However, that was not to be. Sanford bowled persistently short, and gave both Ganguly and Laxman enough time to get behind the line of the ball. Dillon, Cuffy and Collins were persistent, but not penetrative enough.

By close, the pair had added over fifty runs, and India ended the day on 141/4.
Hooper will look forward to dismissing this pair early, both of whom have looked very solid. Ganguly is batting on 22 and Laxman is on 27, including a few shots that featured his trademark timing and placement.

Cricket is a funny game, but his century in the last game notwithstanding, the West Indies will believe that they can dismiss Ratra and the lower order at fairly short notice. This pitch is very different from the one at Antigua, and the odd delivery has thudded into Jacobs' gloves, even as other deliveries have kept rather low.

The West Indies first target will be to see if they can dismiss India for less than 223, the target needed to make India follow on. However, it may still be a good idea not to enforce the follow on, since that would mean that West Indies will have to bat last against Harbhajan Singh, should India make enough runs to make West Indies bat again. Harbhajan has bowled very well in this test, and the pitch has definitely given him enough turn and bounce to make him look forward to bowling on the fourth or fifth day.

Even a target around 150 or 200 may not be easy to chase on this pitch. Having worked hard on the first morning to counter the pace and movement in the pitch, the West Indies will do well to make sure that India bat last and chase a target, something which both teams have had trouble doing successfully in recent years.

* Venky Maly is a special correspondent for CaribbeanCricket.com. His daily match reports and analysis will be appearing throughout the remainder of the series.