Ahmedabad Test, Day 5, Lunch
Saturday, December 15, 2001

Deep Dasgupta and Shiv Sunder Das, two of the non-stars of the Indian batting line-up, did a wonderful job to play out the first session. It was a quiet session and the crowd was not whipped into a frenzy of delight. But it was ever-so-valuable for India. Any fear of losing the Test must have surely vanished now thanks to the work of these two.

Dasgupta, amazingly, is coming good with the bat whenever his team needs him to. This is the fourth knock in as many Tests that he has done so. Meawhile, Das played one of his best innings for a very long time. He had an excellent start to his international career but some tough assignments came his way thereafter. He had to face Australia at home, then go on tour to Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and South Africa, and tours can prove very testing for youngsters.

He seemed to have lost the right balance between attack and defence; he either over-attacked or over-defended. That was the story at Mohali, as well as the first innings here at Ahmedabad. Today, he treaded the middle path perfectly. He looked to defend early on - and he does have a very sound defence - and then slowly move into a more attacking mode once he had got his eye in. In the 40 minutes at lunch, he should be talking to himself and stay focussed for a big one.

Nasser Hussain has been very impressive with his bowling and fielding changes this morning, but the big mistake was made yesterday. He probably gave too much importance to the reputations of the Indian batsmen, and never made the declaration. He might well be ruing that now, because this was the sort of opportunity that may not come around at Bangalore.

The stage is set for a draw and India can only win if Sachin Tendulkar plays his greatest innings yet.

Sanjay Manjrekar, mainstay of the Indian batting in the late '80s and early '90s, was talking to Rahul Bhattacharya.

More Sanjay Manjrekar
Day 4, Close: Too defensive, Nasser

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