Delhi Test, Day 1, Tea
Thursday, February 28, 2002

The second session belonged to Andy Flower. One gets the feeling that he is back to his best, steadily accumulating runs regardless of the conditions. The pitch may not be conducive, the Indians may bowl well, but when Andy Flower hits his stride, all that ceases to matter. It would have been fair to assume that on a pitch like this, Zimbabwe would stand no chance. There is one imponderable one must consider though: the Andy Flower factor.

One of the things that make him such a fine player is his cricketing intelligence. He is always looking to score, working out ways to get the ball away, no matter what the situation may be. Especially impressive is how he gets so many of his runs in the third man region. Most modern batsmen like to play on the front foot or on the rise but Flower worked out that in these conditions, with not much bounce and a fair amount of lateral movement, one of the safest strokes was the steer to third man.

I am impressed with the way Zaheer Khan bowled. He was the only Indian bowler who looked like getting Flower out even in defence. His combination of the short-pitched ball and the yorker could well turn out to be a potent combination in this match.

Dion Ebrahim was picked for this match because he plays spin well. He looked confident during his innings here and gave good support to Flower. There was really not much the Indians could have done to separate these two. If one looks at the scorecard, one will notice that all the bowlers got a decent chance to have a go at the batsmen. But Flower played well, and that looks ominous for India.

Sanjay Manjrekar, stalwart of the Indian batting in the early `90s, was talking to Amit Varma.

More Sanjay Manjrekar
Day 4 , Lunch: 'Nurture the outfield, neglect the pitch'

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd