Close India 437 for 5 (Das 105, Dravid 65, Tendulkar 137*) lead Zimbabwe by 150 runs
scorecard

It was a strange day. Sachin Tendulkar was at the crease throughout - but India managed only 228 runs. On a day when runs were expected to flow like liquor at a Bacchanalian orgy, they dripped like tea off a biscuit at an octogenarian teetotallers' gathering. Tendulkar made a patient hundred, while the others came to the crease, hung around limply for a while, and left, as if bored by the torpid nature of their own play.

The day began rife with expectation. Rahul Dravid and Tendulkar were at the crease, the bowling attack was mediocre, the pitch was expected to hold few terrors. This pair had added 249 runs the last time they played against Zimbabwe at Nagpur, and Sachin had made a double-century. But this was not the day for déjà vu.

To start with, the pitch seemed to have deteriorated quite a bit, with the ball coming off very slowly, with an uneven bounce. Ray Price troubled Tendulkar early on, making him play and miss twice in his first over of the day. Then, just as he was getting into a groove, he was taken off.

That was because the new ball was due, and the captain Stuart Carlisle clearly had more faith in that than his young left-arm spinner. He should have looked at his new-ball bowlers first. Heath Streak was far from his usual accurate self ... and Travis Friend was awful. Short and wide outside off: Tendulkar rocks back and smashes for four. Next over, two full-length deliveries were both flicked nonchalantly to the boundary. This could have been a net session at Dadar Gymkhana, so bad was the bowling, so much at ease did Tendulkar appear. Later on Friend was forcibly removed from the bowling attack by the umpires, after he let go an unintentional third beamer.

Carlisle soon realised the error of his ways and brought Price back, and the run rate dipped again. Dravid tried to cut a short, wide one from Streak which stayed alarmingly low, and only managed to cut it back into his stumps (247 for 1). Dravid had never quite looked in complete command during his 65, which came off 179 deliveries. He was unable to pierce the field with many of his strokes, and couldn't convert all the hit-me balls he received. He got so many of them that he made a half-century anyway, but he would have struggled more against a better attack.

Tendulkar went into his shell, and Sourav Ganguly also took some time to get going. Streak tried to test him with some short ones, but the pitch was so slow that Ganguly could have whipped out a camera and taken a close-up of the ball before letting it whizz by harmlessly.

Only 64 runs came in the morning session, 11 of them in the nine overs after Dravid was out. But both batsmen moved up a gear as 43 runs came in the first hour after lunch. Ganguly looked to be back in the groove when he played an exquisite late cut off Grant Flower, stealing the ball inches from the keeper's gloves and tapping it for a fine four. Next ball, Ganguly stepped forward and caned a cover-drive emphatically to the boundary.

But Ganguly has become famous for the way he charges spinners and hits them over their heads. He did that to Price, with a lofted four to long-on, but perished soon after, holing out to Grant Flower at wide mid-on, going for another big hit(344 for 4). His 38 had taken 99 balls.

VVS Laxman made 13 off 47 deliveries, and never looked comfortable. He enjoys the ball coming on to the bat, and here he had to wait ... and wait ... and wait. He played a couple of lovely strokes – most notably a delightfully wristy on-drive to a ball that pitched outside off – but was out shortly after tea, groping forward to a well-flighted delivery from Price that turned away and bounced more than expected. It kissed the shoulder of his bat before scooting off into the hands of Gavin Rennie (376 for 5).

Tendulkar had his hundred by then, and India should have looked for some quick runs. But Tendulkar appeared to have his eyes on individual landmarks – another double perhaps? – and stodged his way through the final session, in which India scored only 74 runs. Sanjay Bangar got 22 at a strike rate of 25 per 100 balls. You might have criticised him for excessive caution, but then he just followed the example of the man at the other end, the best batsman in the world.

India 1 Shiv Sunder Das, 2 Deep Dasgupta (wk), 3 VVS Laxman, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Rahul Dravid, 6 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 7 Sanjay Bangar, 8 Anil Kumble, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Javagal Srinath.

Teams
Zimbabwe 1 Stuart Carlisle (capt), 2 Trevor Gripper, 3 Alistair Campbell, 4 Gavin Rennie, 5 Andy Flower, 6 Grant Flower, 7 Tatenda Taibu (wk), 8 Heath Streak, 9 Travis Friend, 10 Ray Price, 11 Brighton Watambwa.

Amit Varma is assistant editor and S Rajesh sub editor, Wisden.com India.

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