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Kenya's shock victory was thoroughly deserved
Erapalli Prasanna - 18 October 2001
The second one-day international against Kenya was played under ideal
conditions: the wicket was true, the weather was fair, and the ambience
was perfect. But I could not help thinking that the Kenyans would have
to play out of their collective skin to stretch the Indians and that
this game, too, would end up like the lopsided affair of Bloemfontein.
That match, as I have mentioned in my previous column, was a
disappointing one, at least in terms of competition.
Perhaps I should have been fairer in my assessment, especially after
watching the Kenyans play against South Africa and score 229 runs.
Although they lost that game, there was a spirit of application and
confidence that was nowhere in sight at Bloemfontein. If that match was
any measure of a change in approach, my evaluation should have been a
tad more favourable towards Kenya.
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The Kenyans, in my opinion, had a good measure of the overall strength
of the Indian side, and they must have fancied their chances if they
could put up a decent total. After winning the toss, the stand-in
captain, Steve Tikolo, did mention that, with a score of around 250,
Kenya could fight it out. Anybody recalling the Kenyan total of 90 in
their previous encounter with India might have felt that Tikolo was
perhaps setting his sights a little too high.
Even though the Indian think-tank brought in Harvinder Singh, Venkatesh
Prasad and Reetinder Singh Sodhi as part of a rotation policy, the move
did not yield the expected results. Sodhi was much too slow to pose any
problems to Kenyan batsmen playing with a positive approach. Harvinder
lacked line and length, and Prasad, too, was consistently wayward with
his direction.
Only Harbhajan Singh and Kumble, I thought, bowled with any sense of
accuracy, cutting down the flow of runs that had started with the very
first over. But their efforts were not good enough to stop the Kenyans
from posting a defendable total of 246.
The Kenyan batting may not have the glamour of the much-vaunted Indian
line-up but, on the day, it produced workmanlike and polished efforts.
Ravindu Shah and Kennedy Otieno provided a very stable start, something
that was missing in their previous matches. Thomas Odoyo, an all-rounder
of considerable talent, produced his second fifty of the series, as did
Shah. The three half-centuries, although not converted into more
substantial innings, formed the core of the final total. It is
interesting to note that when Kenya defeated India once before, in
Gwalior, three Kenyan batsmen scored fifties in that game as well.
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The one element that was present in the Kenyan bowling, and notably
absent in the Indian, was discipline. Inspired by the batting
performance and, for a change, having a good shot at victory, the
bowlers put their heart and soul into their task. Joseph Angara, Man of
the Match, was the star of his side's pace battery. Sticking to line and
length and concentrating on moving the ball both ways off the seam,
Angara forced the Indians to go for big shots. Sometimes they came off,
as in the case of Ganguly's two sixes; more often Angara succeeded,
picking up the bumper wicket of Tendulkar, as well as two others.
The Kenyans bowled and fielded so well that I was wondering where this
attitude, this determination and will to win, had suddenly sprouted
from; they were simply brilliant. The Indian batting, without sterling
performances from Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, looks
considerably deficient. We may take comfort from the assertion that we
were not fielding our best-possible side, but the fact remains that we
played all our batting stalwarts, and it was the batting, ultimately,
that let us down in chasing what was an achievable target.
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