Outplayed at every turn
Devanand Ramachandren - 4 May 2002
Carl Hooper could not have asked for more. After the second day's
play, the West Indies had lost just four wickets and taken a
total lead of 212 . They will now be looking to add a few more on
the third day before trying to effect an innings victory that, at
the moment, looks probably unless the Indians play with much more
discipline in their second essay.
Sheer discipline was on display on the second day. Brian Lara,
Ramnaresh Sarwan, Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul all had
their quotas of problems, but they just stuck around, got their
runs off the bad balls, and played out 90 overs without much
fuss.
There was some action though, first in the form of Chris Gayle
losing his wicket and then Ashish Nehra sending back Lara and
Sarwan in successive overs to give the Indian fans some hope.
After that, all the action was provided by Hooper and
Chanderpaul, who took their time to settle in before going after
the bowling in the last hour or so.
Sometimes it is hard to understand why Sourav Ganguly fails to
attack when he should. Just when Lara and Sarwan had gotten
themselves out, he had Harbhajan Singh bowling when he should
have been giving Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra a go at the new
batsmen. All Harbhajan did was restrict the scoring rate and give
the batsmen time to settle down. By the time Zaheer came on to
replace Nehra, the duo had the measure of the wicket.
Nehra bowled brilliantly, Zaheer supported him well, and Ganguly
bowled a restrictive spell.The biggest disappointment of the day,
however, was Javagal Srinath. Somehow he did not really settle
into a rhythm and struggled through all his spells during the
day.
The new ball came and went without any effect, though the West
Indies were lucky to not lose any wickets. But the Indians
clearly were a bowler short, and a Sanjay Bangar in the side
could have helped in at least taking the reins temporarily from
three tiring pacemen.
But despite everything, there is hardly much reason to point
fingers only at Ganguly. A score of 102 is definitely not a
defendable score on a pitch that is far from being loaded with
dynamite. So far the Indians have been outplayed in every
department of the game in this match. If only the International
Cricket Council would let India field 17 players instead of 11,
so that they could get the balance right.
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