Illuminating Indian triumph keeps series alive
Merely a flickering ray of light amid stifling gloom or a spark to ignite a
flame that will burn brightly for the remainder of a hitherto completely
unsatisfactory tour of Australia? Only time will tell which it shall be,
but India's forty-eight run win over Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval today
certainly represented a transparent turn for the better in the short term
at the very least.
The Indians' first win against international opposition on this tour, it
centred largely around a magnificent individual effort from Sourav Ganguly
(141). Indeed, it was he who not only registered an eleventh one-day
international century but also the highest individual score of the
competition. And, in the process, he afforded his team an upper hand which
it never relinquished.
For far from the first time over the course of the last twelve months, the
lithe left hander played his role as an opener to perfection. Initially,
he acted as second fiddle to the flashing blade of Sachin Tendulkar (41),
but he was soon able to set about to executing a lovely mixture of
defensive and attacking strokes on either side of his captain's departure.
With his leader, he added eighty-eight runs for the first wicket in a
little more than fifteen sparkling overs, and then another eighty-seven
came in almost the equivalent amount of time in partnership with Rahul
Dravid (32). He did have cause to become annoyed when both Dravid and
Hrishikesh Kanitkar (6) gifted the Pakistanis two easy catches at deep mid
wicket in relatively quick succession, but even those potentially expensive
mistakes did not prompt him to lose his nerve.
Upon a true pitch, his was a great innings. It again featured a bewitching
array of shots through the off side (cover drives figuring repeatedly) but,
in truth, there were few areas of the ground to which he did not litter
strokes. Accordingly, virtually the entirety of the bowling attack
suffered at his hands; shots both over and through the field played with
abandon. His century itself came from just 119 balls and contained eight
boundaries, and the pace of the proceedings did not slow at all until Wasim
Akram finally trapped him lbw with an inswinging yorker in the penultimate
over of the innings.
By the time that Pakistan began its reply to the imposing tally of 6/267
which Ganguly had done so much to help create, the challenge was already
daunting enough. But matters became even more inauspicious when a sound
opening partnership yet again eluded it - openers Saeed Anwar (8) and
Shahid Afridi (9) each disappearing inside the first five overs. That they
perished to poor strokes - the former to an uppish cover drive as he
reached out at a wide ball and the latter to an awful pull - established
another irreversible trend in itself.
For a time, Ijaz Ahmed (54) defied the inevitable with a third consecutive
half century but, even by the time he surrendered his wicket to a rash
stroke to Dravid at deep cover, neither conviction nor impetus seemed to be
in sufficiently ample supply to render the case for a Pakistani win
anywhere near compelling. A sizzling cameo of 67 from Azhar Mahmood (six
powerful fours and one six smattered in a half century which arrived from a
mere thirty-four balls) went a long way toward completely transforming the
situation but it was a measure of Pakistan's plight that even his hand
could not fully rectify matters. Indeed, it could probably be said that
the fate of the match had been sealed by the time that Kanitkar took an
outstanding catch (literally on the deep mid wicket fence) to dismiss
Inzamam-ul-Haq (15) in the fifteenth over. Leg spinner Anil Kumble (4/40)
feasted himself upon the spoils amid a mid-innings display from his rivals
in which there was never the same degree of enterprise that had marked its
upper order batting in each of its previous three matches.
While they retain only the most hazy of dreams of pulling themselves out of
their deep mire in this competition, there was accordingly a long overdue
glow for the Indians in which to bask at the end of this match. And,
notwithstanding the fact that they would need to continue to garner this
form through each of their closing preliminary fixtures to make this
triumph truly consequential, it said it all that expressions and demeanours
were certainly less murky than they have been for a long time among Indian
players, administrators and passionate fans upon its attainment.
