At the best of times, the one-day game is regarded by the purist as a wanton pretender, a dumbing-down of a cerebral activity that unfolds in a multi-layered way over a huge period of time. But over the years, it has been accepted as an anomaly to be tolerated for the sake of commerce. But a 25-over game? Whichever way you look at it, it's an utter debasement of cricket. That said, the umpires made the correct decision by getting the game underway when they did. There was a stadium full of spectators there. Justice demanded that they got their eyeful. And a spectacle it certainly was: the batsmen flailed madly at every ball, line and length ceased to matter, good balls flew to the boundary fence off edges, full-tosses fetched wickets and the game proceeded at a frenetic pace. India even managed get out on the stroke of 25 overs. This is just the sort of stuff that would get the American baseball fan seriously interested. But was it cricket?

The record books will certainly count it as cricket and the series is now delectably poised at one-one and India go into yet another virtual final with the sickening knowledge that they have unfailingly muffed up every final in the last three years.

But in the event, India were deserving losers even though it can be said that Sourav Ganguly was desperately unfortunate to win the toss. The rain came down literally minutes after he had made his decision to bat on what looked like perfect batting conditions; but when he came out to bat four hours later, not only were the conditions different, it was a different game altogether.

Batting first in a shortened match is a huge disadvantage because it is a hazard to estimate a winning score. In most cases, sides start with large ambitions and end up underachieving. But even accounting for the circumstances, it is difficult to feel sorry for India because they were not worthy of sympathy. They came out to bat in a 25-over match as if they had only 10 overs to play. And within 10 overs, having mindlessly lost four wickets for 58 runs, they were effectively out of the match.

Virender Sehwag is a superb striker of the ball, but someone needs to tell him that apart from a big heart, it also takes a good mind to play cricket. He should have been kicking himself for giving his wicket away to a nothing shot in the first match. Instead, the first ball he faced, he attempted a wristy chip over the infield and presented a lolly to mid-on. Some might call it courage, but it was plain stupid. The Indian innings got off on the wrong foot and blundered along embarrassedly till the very last ball when Harbhajan Singh's charge down the wicket ended in an edge to the wicketkeeper.

An asking rate of less than five was never going to stretch the West Indians. They took the first few overs to play themselves in and then butchered the Indians. Chris Gayle was spectacular. A natural striker of the ball, he got his eyes in and treated the West Indian crowd to some effortless and clean hitting and showed the Indians what could have been possible had they not been so hopelessly senseless. A flurry of wickets at the ended created some more artificial excitement, but it was a relief to have the match behind us.

Sambit Bal is the editor of Wisden.com India.

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