India vs West Indies, Aug 7th, Khettarama, Colombo

Dravid won the toss and elected to bat. It seemed like a wise decision considering Khettarama’s stadium’s supposed bias against teams batting under the lights, but a quick bouncy pitch and sharp bowling by the Windies pace men left India struggling after the first 15 overs at 49-2 with Ganguly also being sent back by a Powell snorter that took out his left forearm and sent him to the hospital. Powell got Laxman caught behind, and this wonderful batting artist is fast approaching retirement from one day international cricket. Sehwag played another ridiculous innings at the top, being bowled off a no ball and kept scoreless by a cramping leg stump line from Butler. Butler finally got his man leg before by shaping the ball into him. Sehwag has to sit down and come up with a strategy to counter the plans that all international teams prepare for him. Maybe he has to focus on scoring some runs on the leg side and not allow the pressure to build up.

Yuvraj Singh rediscovered his timing and played some wonderful shots along with Dravid to ease the pressure. Tino Best bowled a couple of wonderfully directed bouncers to Yuvraj, and the second one had Yuvraj flat on his back. Windies appear to be playing better without the ultra conservative Chanderpaul as the captain and the stand in, Sylvester Joseph, proved to be a brave and attacking captain. He brought Omari Banks to the attack in the 16th over and had immediate success. Dravid who was playing well was bowled by Banks while attempting a forcing shot on the leg side. He was a touch unlucky as the ball rolled on to his stumps from an inside edge onto his back foot. 52-3, but it was virtually 4 wickets down with Ganguly unlikely to bat and India was in serious danger of returning a sub par score against the fired up Windies bowling.

It took 4 matches in Sri Lanka before India finally produced a good batting partnership. Yuvraj and Kaif added 165 runs in just under 30 overs. Kaif ran extremely well and added about 10-15 runs to Yuvraj’s score with his speed between the wickets. After getting his eye in Yuvraj began to accelerate effortlessly and his strike rate jumped to 98%. He began to dominate the bowling and contemptuously dismissed Best’s second spell bouncer to the midwicket boundary and also slapped Powell’s bouncer for a wonderful six. This innings of 110 was reminiscent of his 139* in Sydney against Australia. India have really been missing the Yuvi-Kaif lower middle order partnerships, and this performance illustrates why India were such a powerful one day team leading up to and during the 2003 World Cup. Dhoni came in during the 46th over and flexed his butcher arms to hoick a couple of sixes and a cheeky sweep of Best to add 28 in 13 balls helping India finish on 262-4, with Kaif unbeaten on 83.

One would think that total was beyond the fragile Windies batting especially with Chanderpaul not in the side, but this greenhorn team has certainly found its feet in international cricket and competed hard till the end. Marshall and Morton got off to a frenetic start scoring at more than 6 an over, and Marshall hit a lot of boundaries off Zaheer. They were both able to handle the indippers from Pathan with more distinction than in the earlier matches. Pathan finally had to produce one of his perfect inswingers to account for Marshall. Both Joseph and Deonarine fell trying to play ambitious boundary hits. 3 wickets down, and it was the perfect setting for Anil Kumble. He showed his class and the young West Indian’s had never seen anything like him before and he grabbed three crucial wickets. Kumble made a strong case for playing 2 spinners in the final.

As has been the pattern with the Indian bowling in this series, after having the opponents out for the count by grabbing the first 6 wickets, they couldn’t finish it off. Kumble had finished his spell and Dravid gave his part time trundlers a long spell. Yuvraj and Sehwag bowled in tandem for a short while. Morton and the young keeper, Ramdin, built a solid partnership off the fifth bowler taking Windies to within 70 runs from victory. They got close but couldn’t finish it off as the heat and humidity of Colombo tired Morton and he got out to a tame clip to short midwicket off Nehra, after scoring a valuable 84. Ramdin continued valiantly but it wasn’t to be enough as he had no support at the other end. It must be said the Sehwag bowled better in this innings than any of his previous outings and he also got the wicket of the dangerous Tino Best. Butler, who was run out by a direct hit from Kaif at long on, and Powell couldn’t contribute that much. Even though Nehra and Zaheer were expensive in the end overs, they didn’t panic and came back strongly in the 49 and 50th over to seal the match for India.

A few flutters for Dravid, but India showed its experience to hold on for an important win. The West Indian team can be proud of their showing on this tour, coming in with a second or maybe even third string team which was written off even before a ball was bowled. They gave it their all and were playing as a team. I did say after their first game against India that if their batting could put some runs on the board their bowlers can create an upset, which they did against Sri Lanka yesterday. The impressive thing was that they continued to improve as the tour progressed. Sylvester Joseph has displayed fine leadership skills, a future captain of the West Indies.

Everything is set for the final between India and Sri Lanka on Wednesday. The Premadasa stadium in Khettarama has better one day international pitches than Dambulla and it looks like we won’t have a low scoring final. Batting second did not seem to be a distinct disadvantage and the match definitely will not be decided by the toss. The better team will win.