Defeat stares Zimbabwe

Prem Panicker

The Indian innings, on day two of the first Test against Zimbabwe, proved a larger point.

For years now, the media has been beating its collective breast, and ruing the fact that successive Indian captains and coaches have not been supportive of their players. Also, that they have failed to extract, from the lower half of the batting lineup, a sense of commitment and dedication, the ability to put a price on their wickets, and to get the team a few vital extra runs.

Enter John Wright. When Samir Dighe kept like a novice in the third Test against Australia in Chennai, there was a collective demand for his head. But then he showed grit with the bat, and helped steer India to the win that clinched the series.

"This guy's got attitude, we need him and more like him in the side," Wright declared and, with the captain joining in, fought to ensure that Dighe retained his place in the side. Simultaneously, the Wright-Ganguly combine worked on the tailenders, pushing them into practising their batting more, and putting a greater premium on their wickets.

Public displays of confidence such as the one Dighe received, and constant exhortations to try hard with the bat, do have an effect. Quantified in terms of runs, this is the story: The fifth Indian wicket fell with the score on 98. The second half added 220 runs to the total.

Even granting that Srinath's promotion meant that Sachin Tendullkar was the sixth to go, the score at that point was 178. The last four wickets thus added a further 140.

More to the point, Samir Dighe and Harbhajan Singh got together with the score on 208/7, and Zimbabwe well in with a chance to race through the rest of the batting and keep the lead down to a minimum. Both played contrasting innings -- the commonality being the application they brought to their job. A 72-run partnership for the 8th wicket swung the game entirely India's way, and a further 38 runs added by Harbhajan in tandem with last man Ashish Nehra underlined the point that the Indian team now wears a tail with a bit of attitude.

Having said that, India through some rather ordinary batting in the morning and afternoon, abdicated a chance to really pin Zimbabwe to the wall. The story began as early as the first over of play, when Watambwa bowled one on the leg stump, Srinath flicked, and Guy Whittall dived headlong to take a brilliant catch in front of the square leg umpire.

Sourav Ganguly came to the wicket needing to find form, and runs. He seemed intent, early on, on the job of digging himself in. And was just beginning to move his feet well when an unfortunate dismissal had him risking another warning, for protest, before walking off. Heath Streak went round the wicket and banged one in short, having set a forward and backward square leg to let the batsman know it was coming. The line was off, Ganguly shaped to play then pulled out, the ball brushed his sleeve on the way through, and the umpire upheld the appeal for a caught behind.

That brought Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid together. All morning, Sachin had seemed intent on playing out the overs, never pushing on his shot-making and time and again, electing to check shots to deliveries he would, in another frame of mind, have smashed with murderous intent. Dravid, meanwhile, has since his demotion to six shown a willingness to look for shot-play, and the two together moved the score along smoothly. The 50 of the partnership in fact came off just 53 balls, with Dravid outscoring Sachin 27 (off 33 balls) to 21.

Having got past his 50, Sachin Tendulkar was just beginning to up his tempo when he fell, to another bit of brilliance in the field from the Zimbabweans. Blignaut, easily the most wayward of the bowlers on view, bowled one wide of off, Sachin launched into a drive aimed at slamming the ball past extra cover, hit a bit too hard at it, got the thick edge and Stuart Carlisle at second slip flung himself to his right and snaffled a ball that was rocketing past him en route the third man boundary.

That wicket fell just on the stroke of lunch, India having made 96 runs in the morning session in 24 overs. Post lunch, it was Blignaut who resumed the attack, rather surprisingly given the runs he was giving away. Rahul Dravid, who seemed in very good touch (like Andy Flower against the Indians, Dravid loves the Zimbabweans, averaging close to 190 against them), was particularly severe on the bowler, driving him repeatedly on both sides of the wicket and pulling when the ball was dropped short.

One pull too many, though, caused his downfall. Blignaut bowled short, and wide of off, Dravid opted for the short arm swat from off to leg, mishit, put the ball high in the air and Andy Flower behind the stumps took a dolly. Dravid's 44 had come in an uncharacteristic 67 balls, and the wicket went just when he seemed to have had the measure of the attack.

And then came the partnership of the match, as a determined Dighe and a flamboyant Harbhajan settled down to put the attack to the sword. Dighe was content to push the ball off the square and race very sharp, and very well judged, singles; Harbhajan on the other hand went for his shots and as his confidence improved, began hitting them with amazing panache. A lofted six over long on off Murphy was Harbhajan's most productive shot, but for me the shot of the partnership, perhaps of the match itself, was an amazing square drive to a ball of yorker length from Streak, Harbhajan stepping away to make room for the shot and hitting with incredible confidence off the full length around his off stump.

Dighe's vital stats tell a story: Off 95 balls faced, he defended to 71, and scored as many as 13 singles in his 47. He was looking good for a fifty when he flicked at a ball from Streak going down the leg side, for Andy Flower to hold way down the leg side.

Streak, later in the same over, took out Zaheer Khan with a beautiful delivery around off, climbing steeply and cutting back in. Zaheer shaped to defend, couldn't control the shot, and found the ball going back onto his stumps off the high part of the bat.

And then came the association that had to be seen to be believed. It was not about the 38 runs they added, but the way they did it. As soon as Nehra walked in, Harbhajan took over the senior partner's role, talking to his partner before every delivery, encouraging, exhorting -- and each time Nehra got behind the line and played the ball, Harbhajan at the other end had his hands up, applauding.

On the stroke of tea, Watambwa banged one in, Harbhajan pushed at it, the ball got the thick edge onto pad to balloon in the air and the bowler, on his follow through, checked, changed direction, then dived headlong to hold a catch in keeping with the high standards the Zimbaweans had set all day.

Umpire Harper turned it down.

The post lunch session produced 125 runs, and Harbhajan, courtesy the umpire, walked in to tea unbeaten on 54. As with Dighe, stats tell a story: 71 balls faced, 66 runs scored, 44 dot balls and 12 singles in there besides 10 authentic fours and the huge six over long on off Murphy. Equally, Ashish Nehra kept him company facing 31 deliveries, defending to 25 of those, and taking five singles in his nine.

An attempted pull off Watambwa (Bajju, in fact, had earlier played a superb hook off a Streak bouncer) however misfired, the ball too close to body for the shot, and Harbhajan holed out to mid on, India finishing up with 318 off 89.5 overs.

Streak and Watambwa were the pick of the Zimbabwe bowlers, Blignaut despite his two wickets was pedestrian, and Olonga appeared to have some niggling injury that kept him off the field longer than he was on it.

Javagal Srinath had an eminently forgettable first innings with the ball. The second time out, he was closer to the kind of bowler his captain needed him to be: quick, incisive, and very sure of length and line. Dion Ebrahim was his first victim, finding a breakback at speed too hard to handle and pushing it into the hands to forward short leg to have Zimbabwe at 14/1.

The second wicket fell to the kind of catching that the Zimbabweans had displayed earlier in the day. Srinath bowled one just outside off, Guy Whittall opted to drive hard at it, the ball flew in the air and Ramesh, at gully, flung himself headlong to snatch a beauty. Zimbabwe 34/2.

Srinath almost made it three in a row when he made one kick up at Stuart Carlisle. On the defensive prod, the ball took the pad, then hit the glove and Dravid dived to hold at short square leg. The celebrations, though, proved premature as Umpire Harper, yet again, missed a clear decision.

Both Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan pushed themselves in their respective spells -- and both earned an official warning apiece for running on the wicket. Which means that with a lot of work remaining in the innings, India's two left-arm seamers are in the high risk zone, another warning automatically ensuring that the bowler getting it won't be able to bowl again in the innings.

Harbhajan for one wouldn't complain too loudly. Introduced late in the day, the offie immediately got the ball to jump and turn appreciably, hitting the rough caused by the left arm seamer outside the right hand batsman's off stump. Carlisle looked all at sea and time and again, defending off the back foot, found the ball going dangerously close to the fielder at leg slip. As it turned out, though, it was Campbell who went, Harbhajan going round the wicket and looping one up on length around off, the batsman pushed at it, got the edge onto pad and Das at short square had a simple take. Campbell yet again failed to actualise his talent, going for 16 and Zimbabwe at 63/3 found itself sliding again.

Bryan Murphy, sent in as night watchman, survived. He wouldn't be able to tell you how. At sea against Harbhajan, he found his problems magnified when Tendulkar came in, turned an off break a mile in to hit the pad for a close LBW shout, then turned one the other way to find the edge, the ball flashing in the air between keeper and slip. In the next over, an arm ball from Harbhajan had Carlisle standing square, taking the ball right between his legs in front of middle stump, the umpire turning down the LBW appeal much to the bemusement of the Indians.

Play ended with Zimbabwe on 79/3. And left the game just where Test matches should be -- heading into a third day that can turn the game one way or the other, decisively. By the time play ends tomorrow, we'll know, one way or the other, what the most likely outcome of the match is.

  'A good spinner can get turn on any track'
Harbhajan Singh on the Zimbabwe tour, in Real Audio.
The interview was conducted in Hindi.