Ganguly powers India to victory

Faisal Shariff

The Coca-Cola Cup finally saw a close encounter after two lacklustre, one-sided, opening games. In the end, the better team won.

India can take home a lot of plusses from this game. The return to form of skipper Sourav Ganguly being the highlight of the lot.

India, going into the game without V V S Laxman -- out due to an injured finger, seems to be working towards a flexible batting line-up. On both occasions, Hemang Badani, first, and, on Wednesday, Dinesh Mongia flourished in the number three position. The India bowling though needs to work on the number of no balls and wides they seem to be giving away in ODIs, which, in close encounters, decides the outcome.

Nevertheless, India coasted home with four wickets and four balls to spare.

The Zimbabwe innings:
Zimbabwe bolstered their batting line-up by recalling Craig Wishart to the side and deciding to promote 18-year-old schoolboy wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu to keep their hopes of making it to the finals of the triangular afloat. With skipper Heath Streak sitting out with an abdominal strain, Zimbabwe’s worries were compounded. As the taste turned sour, Zimbabwe was served some more.

Stand-in captain Guy Whittal lost the toss and Ganguly put the hosts into bat on a wicket, which according to the curator, wasn’t an ideal one-day square. Despite the hard nature of the square, the overnight dew, which delayed the match by 15 minutes, made it a grueling task for batsman to score early on.

Survival more than offence was the daunting task in the first hour of play. The opening bowling pair of Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan started a characteristic spell; swift yet erratic. They were guilty of giving away 16 runs in wides and no balls between them.

Zaheer picked up the wicket of Campbell, in the second over of the day, who, playing a lazy shot on the up, completely off-balanced sans any footwork for Ganguly to take an easy catch at mid-off.

In the same over, four balls later, Carlisle returned to the pavilion for a blob when the left-arm bowler trapped him plumb in front with a full-length delivery. With the scoreboard reading 7/2, Zimbabwe seemed to be down in the dumps.

The dismissal brought Craig Wishart to the crease. With 756 runs in 50 ODIs at a disappointing average of 17.58, his selection defied logic except for the 102 he scored against the Indians at Harare on their last tour three years ago. Along with Dion Ebrahim, who was struggling to get the ball of the square, Wishart added 87 runs for the second wicket and in the process repaired the early damage to the Zimbabwe innings.

Ebrahim looked edgy and uncertain about his off-stump and at one stage had just 3 runs in 23 balls. With 9 runs from 49 deliveries, Agarkar dropped the easiest of caught and bowled chances offered by Ebrahim in the 15th over.

Skipper Ganguly seemed to be getting everything right. Bringing himself on, he quickly had Wishart, looking dangerous with every passing minute at the crease, hitting on the up and offering a dolly to Agarkar at mid-off for 46 with Zimbabwe on 94/3.

Zaheer came back and struck soon enough, deceiving Ebrahim (42 runs of 109 balls) with a slow yorker and hitting him bang on the toe in front of the wicket. At 112/4, in the 33rd over stand-in skipper Guy Whittal walked into the middle with the situation demanding the batsmen to crank up a gear.

The Zimbabwean batting was a tad drab until Whittal and Grant Flower came together. From 149/4 in the 40th over, the score raced to 185 for the loss of a single wicket -- that of Grant Flower, brilliantly caught one-handed by Virendra Sehwag at mid-off off Zaheer.

The departure of Grant Flower didn't really pull the foot off the gas. Rainbow warrior Blignaut and skipper Whittal accelerated and reached a respectable, if not threatening, total of 234. Whittal completed a well-deserved half-century in the last over of the innings and it was his knock which really propelled the hosts' score to 234, grabbing 85 runs in the last 10 overs. The Indians further made it tougher for themselves by generously giving away 28 sundries.

The India innings
Ganguly took 15 deliveries for his first run. Runs, rather. But with the foot to the pitch of the ball, the sublime timing and the full face of the bat, ‘Dada’, as he is affectionately called by his teammates, found the fence. And with it his form.

A straight punch of the very next delivery with the mid-off fielder playing spectator re- confirmed the belief.

With Tendulkar at the other end screaming, 'Ball ko dekhta reh!' (Keep looking at the ball) and a fusillade of criticism hounding him, Ganguly finally tore the formbook with a gritty, though not smooth, 85.

Despite the fact that he lost Tendulkar in the tenth over for just nine with the score reading 22/1, Ganguly, sporting a close haircut, combined with southpaw Dinesh Mongia for a 69-run partnership in 15 overs.

With the ball not coming on to the bat easily, Tendulkar went ahead with a drive with the ball stopping on him for Grant Flower taking a difficult, low catch in front of him in the covers. The irony of the dismissal being Tendulkar's voice on the microphone moments before telling Ganguly that the ball is stopping before coming on to the bat.

At the halfway stage, with India at 91/1, debutant Mongia pulled one, only to be grabbed by Whittal at square leg off Mutendera. Mongia seemed pretty unfazed by the situation. His ability to find the gaps and keep the scoreboard ticking along with his temperament and fielding skills augurs well for the bench strength of the Indian team. The southpaw, however, does need to work on his footwork.

With the skipper and his deputy, Dravid, at the crease, the result seemed to be a mere formality as Ganguly kept getting better with every delivery he faced, and Dravid scoring at a pace that would put to shame the mouths which labeled him 'The Wall’.

The highlight of the partnership was easily the over in which Ganguly reached his 50 by thumping a straight drive of his opposite number past mid-on. Shifting gears soon after with the alacrity of an F1 driver, Ganguly deposited the ball into the stands for maximum.

With a ferocious drive to the fence off the last ball from Dravid, Whittal’s over fetched 16 runs and put India in the driver’s seat.

The rate at which India got its fifties was a classic case of one-day acceleration, the sequence read 103, 69, 44, 53.

The introduction of the left-arm spinner Grant Flower changed the complexion of the game. Ganguly danced down the track and lofted the ball only for Campbel to hold on to the catch and almost roll over the boundary ropes. The third umpire confirmed the catch and Ganguly was on his way back to the pavilion, compiling 85 runs of 124 balls. India were coasting at 183/3.

With the match almost in India’s pocket, Grant Flower decided to change the script and in the same over claimed Badani, who played all over the ball, yorking himself in the process for no score. India were 187/4 in the 40th over, another 48 runs away from a place in the finals.

Sehwag tried to sweep Flower, got a top-edge and was caught at deep-square leg for two. The brittle Indian batting line-up at 193/5 was rocking.

Grant Flower claimed his fourth wicket when he had Dighe caught of his own bowling with India requiring another 24 runs in 27 balls.

Dravid was the only stabilizing factor at the crease, stroking his way to a fifty in merely 44 balls on a wicket which wasn’t suited for stroke making.

Ajit Agarkar and he eventually saw India through with some lusty hitting with India requiring 2 runs off the last over.

Man-of-the-match Dravid, with 72 from 64 deliveries, found the fence and India coasted home and into the finals, after a minor middle-order glitch, by four wickets and four balls to spare.

Scoreboard