Marlon Samuels fell short of a well-deserved century but still managed to steer the West Indies to a three-wicket win over India in the third one-day international in Chennai on Saturday.
After a shaky start, Samuels (98) and captain Brian Lara (83) consolidated the innings and made light of a target of 268 on a pure batting track. The West Indies, set 269 for victory, cruised to 270 for seven in 43.4 overs to post their first win in the series. India now lead the series 2-1.
Earlier, Opener Robin Uthappa smashed 70 off just 41 balls before India were 268 all out in 48 overs.
Medium-pacer Dwayne Bravo took four for 39 in an inspired second spell as the last seven wickets fell for 36 runs, after the batsmen had looked set to dominate on a flat Chepauk stadium pitch.
The 21-year-old Uthappa struck 11 fours and two sixes to give the hosts a blazing start after being asked to bat first.
Skipper Rahul Dravid (57) and Sachin Tendulkar, who made a chancy 60, then added 106 runs off 115 balls for the fourth wicket, before the visitors staged a remarkable comeback through accurate bowling and sharp fielding.
Bravo claimed the wickets of Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh (10), Dinesh Karthik (8) and last-man Santhakumaran Sreesanth (1).
India innings
As Robin Uthappa went nuts against Dwayne Bravo in the 10th over of the Indian innings, a friend popped up on Gmail's talk feature to ask, where the hell did this kid come from?
Karnataka, would be the flip answer but the question is really testimony to the shortness of public memory. It is less than a year ago in April 2006, actually that the youngster debuted with a crackling 86 off 96 against England that powered a chase of 289.
The key ingredients of the youngster's batting were on show there what his innings of 70 off 41 balls here at the MAC Stadium in Chennai was serve up a reminder.
His style is unfussy; he opts to come onto the front foot even as the ball is being delivered, and then go back only if he absolutely has to.
From that hitting perch, he brings the bat down in very straight, clean hitting arcs and shows a marked preference for the V; always, it is the full face of the bat that meets the ball. As witness his wagon wheel here: 5 to third man, 7 to fine leg, two through point, nothing square on the on, 12 through the covers, 8 through midwicket, 15 through mid off and 21 through mid on (a total of 36 out of 70 in the V, an unusually high percentage.
His first two scoring shots were nervous: a tentatively flicked brace to fine leg, then a flashy drive outside off that put the ball in the air but wide of slips for a four to third man.
From then on, it was all confidence, timing and, when occasion called for it, brute power. The problem Uthappa poses for bowlers is his willingness to attack both lengths: when it is even remotely near the good length spot, he is there on the front foot, driving through the line and where necessary, on the up; when you pitch it short he blasts it square and when you bounce, as the Windies bowlers did twice to try and stem the flow, he flashes into the hook instinctively.
Uthappa first took to Taylor, slamming 24 runs off 18 deliveries; he then turned his attention to the quicker Powell (15/7), who was consistently hitting 142 and over on the speed gun: in the 8 th over a blazing drive on bended knee through cover point brought up India's 50; the next ball was straight driven for the four that brought up the 50 of the partnership off 35 balls (Uthappa contributed 40 off 25 against Suresh Raina's 7/13) and when Lara brought mid on very straight to block that shot, the next ball was driven even straighter. An over later, Uthappa picked Powell up from outside off and muscled the ball over long on for a six that brought up his 50 (33 balls, 8 fours, 1 six).
A desperate Brian Lara turned to Dwayne Bravo to try and rein in the scoring, and Uthappa went nuts. Two balls to read the bowler, then down on bended knee to blast one through extra cover; the predictable slower ball saw the batsman come forward to loft over the long off boundary; the fifth ball was push-driven, in a fashion favored by Tendulkar at his best, through extra cover and when an irritated Bravo bounced, Uthappa flashed into the hook and got four more to fine leg.
The end came in anti-climactic fashion: Lara brought on Chris Gayle for the 11th over, with the power play taken; Uthappa went onto the front foot and looked to loft the bowler back over his head, but saw the ball smear off the bat a bit, giving it elevation but no distance and Lendl Simmons, back-peddaling from mid off, held (70/41; 11 fours, two sixes).
A standing ovation from the capacity crowd greeted an innings that left the West Indies bowling rattled (as indicated, among other stats, by the 22 extras they gave away in the first dozen overs alone), gave Virender Sehwag a complex, and the selectors a definite headache.
By contrast, Gautam Gambhir was not his usual ebullient self. A few plays and misses toyed with his nerves; when Powell banged one in, the southpaw went onto his toes to crack square, but misread the bounce and top edged to Simmons at third man (0/6; 7/1).
If Suresh Raina's promotion to number three was likely an attempt to give the youngster some quality time in the middle in a bid to recapture lost form, the results were mixed. On the plus side, Raina seemed a lot more at ease around and outside his off stump than during his much-discussed slump; he was surer about his leaving and clinical with the forcing shots square when opportunity afforded.
On the downside, the confidence is still not fully back; the occasional well hit shot, especially on the up and in the V, was followed by long spells when he unerringly picked out fielders. He looked to have batted his way back into a semblance of form, but fell in tame fashion when, to a length ball outside off from Taylor, Raina mistimed a drive and put it in the air for Lara to hold well at cover (23/36; 126/3).
Rahul Dravid started, as he has in his new avtaar, like a scalded cat, whipping drives on either side of the wicket. At the other end, Tendulkar took his time to get his eye in, opting for singles off checked pushes till he had gotten a feel for the immaculate batting conditions.
Despite the loss of Uthappa and Raina during this spell, India kept up a decent run rate between overs 10-20, adding 56 and taking the score to 151/3 at the end of 20. It could have been far worse, but the Windies fielders came to the party with a string of superb saves that, during these ten overs alone, saved anywhere up to 20 runs.
The two batsmen settled into risk-free accumulation and with the West Indies fully on the defensive using Gayle and Marlon Samuels to take the pace off the ball, a single per ball was there for the taking, so Tendulkar and Dravid took them without working up a sweat. India progressed to 183/3 after 25 ( 7.32 rpo) and 206/3 after 30 (6.86 rpo). The 200 came up in the 29th over; in the 32nd, both Tendulkar (50/54 with just two fours) and Dravid (50/56 with six fours) got to their half centuries.
Tendulkar, who had been let off in the 25th over when Dinesh Ramdhin missed a simple stumping off Gayle, had another life at 52 when he looked to chip Gayle over the infield; Brian Lara mistimed his jump and made a mess of an overhead catch he would have taken in his sleep any other day. A pushed single in that over brought up the 100 of the partnership (55/57 being Sachin's contribution, and 53/59 Dravid's).
Dravid, who had been hitting along the ground all along, went down on one knee to try and slog Gayle over the ropes in the 35th over, but didn't get hold of the shot well enough to beat Emrit, who judged it to a nicety and took it right on the fence (57/67; 232/4).
Two overs later, Tendulkar left. Again, the attempt was to clear the infield off Bravo; again, the batsman failed to get proper hold of the sort of shot he played to perfection in his pomp. The shot was hit a touch too soon, with the bat turning in his hand. Unlike Lara earlier, Runako Morton was right on the money here sprinting to his left at mid on, Morton timed his jump to perfection to take a blinder (60/66; 237/5).
Tendulkar put much-needed runs against his name here, but yet again, failed to really impress. The batting conditions were the best we have seen in a long time; the attack was on its knees; the platform in place when he walked in was awesome in its proportions, and the situation cried out for a dominating innings, the kind that could really administer the coup de grace which was not what we got. That the run rate, a monumental 9 per over when Uthappa fell and a healthy 7.32 at the 25 over mark, had fallen to 6.26 at his dismissal was testimony to an innings that was fine enough statistically, but below par in real worth.
The onus was on Yuvraj Singh, playing serious cricket for the first time since his freak injury during the Champions' Trophy and seemingly needing time to find his best touch, and local lad Dinesh Karthick to give India the sort of score batting first in these conditions demanded. India headed into the slog on 247/5 at the end of 40 where the first 20 overs had produced 151 runs, the second 20 had yielded just 96.
Karthik in the 41st over slog-swept Samuels; the ball went up in the air and down the throat of Gayle on the midwicket boundary; the fielder got under it, got both hands wrapped around it, then dropped it like the hottest of potatoes.
An over later Yuvraj, who never looked even close to being in big match touch (the only competitive cricket he has had since his injury was a turn with an under-19 squad!), fell. He had never found the range, power and timing on his shots; an attempt to swing Bravo around merely produced a steepling top edge the bowler held with ease on the follow through (10/21; India 255/6).
The pressure got to Karthik as well in the same over, he fished at one that Bravo slipped through the corridor quicker and fuller, got the edge and Ramdhin held with evident relief (8/17; 255/7). From 230/3 in the 34 th over, India had lost 4 wickets for the addition of just 25 runs inside the next 8 overs, and was clearly going to fall short of par score on a true track.
Next to go, Agarkar: Samuels kept him quiet for two deliveries on the stumps, the third was outside off and Agarkar flashed, looking to finesse a four to third man. Morton, this time at a very short third man, dived forward and to his right to snaffle another great catch (2/10; 259/8)
Without Uthappa facing him, Jerome Taylor came back, and felt confident enough to produce the fast bowler's one-two: a bouncer, then the fuller delivery. Ramesh Powar, intimidated by the former, stayed in his crease and wafted at the latter, managing an edge onto pad that the bowler comfortably held on the follow-through (5/13; 265/9).
Bravo rattled Sreesanth with a series of short deliveries around off; one fend too many found the bat handle through to slip, and India's innings folded for 268 at least 70 short of what they should conceivably have got judging by the pitch, the bowling, and the almost unbelievable start.
For the Windies, who impressed with superb ground fielding but were let down by some inept catching, the quicks were yet again wayward. Belter or no, the captain would have expected his bowlers to bowl decent lines on one side of the wicket. He would have been disappointed, especially in Taylor and Powell who sprayed it around to too great a degree especially in the early overs, when the assault was on.
Chris Gayle, whose ten overs yielded 57 runs for two wickets, and Marlon Samuels, whose 1/41 in 10 was at least in part due to the slump, were the most impressive superb returns on a pitch of this kind. It does need mentioning, though, that Dravid and Tendulkar accorded both spinners great respect, never really looking to put either under the hammer and seemingly happy to work them around for singles. Bravo, who went for 19 in his first over, took 4 for 20 in his next eight -- a good comeback against the lower half of the batting lineup.
On a larger note, the fact that India opted to experiment with its lineup is understandable: this series, and the one to follow against Sri Lanka, are intended to fine tune the team for the World Cup and you cannot do without exploring all available options.
What seemed a touch off, though, was the decision to give Sourav Ganguly a break (unless any injury niggles had a role in that call): the player has been out of international cricket for close on a year, he is now on a vein of prime form, and you would think time on the bench was not as valuable to his cause and the team's as time in the middle for him to add more runs, and confidence, to the bank.
Switching Gambhir out to give Uthappa a go would surely have been the more logical option?
West Indies innings
Twice, Brian Lara's West Indies had let India off the hook.
When the Windies skipper opted to bowl first on a batting beauty, it looked like India would be third time lucky. More so, when Chris Gayle went for a first ball duck in identical fashion to his dismissal in Cuttack neither forward nor back to an inswinging delivery from Ajit Agarkar that straightened to hit the pad in front of middle and off. (0/1; Windies 0/1).
But then came a nightmare first over from Sreesanth: A four to the loosener first up, then two huge wides, finding the boundary on the leg and off sides as the bowler struggled to control early and excessive swing under the lights, and two fours to end the over as Dwayne Smith cashed in on loose deliveries outside his off stump.
Sreesanth went for 22 in that first over and never really recovered either his nerve, or his bowling bearings.
If this series is about finding answers to questions, the Indians managed to find one more question: what exactly is the problem with Sreesanth when it comes to limited overs? The bowler, so focused and spot on during the recent Test series against South Africa, has plumped ineptitude in the shorter version.
At the other end, Agarkar looked for a while as though he would create miracles all on his own with some help from Runako Morton, who had a dart at a wide delivery swinging further away and managed only to feather the ball to Karthik (1/8; 27/2).
Smith and Marlon Samuels began to settle in, and Sreesanth's vagaries spread to Agarkar as well. The seamer lost control in the seventh over, book-ended by a four down the leg side off the first ball and successive fours through the off from the last two deliveries.
Dravid turned to Kumble in the 11th over, and the leg spinner struck in his second when he landed one on off turning the wrong one across the left-handed Smith. The batsman pushed at it, got the thick outer edge and Dravid, at slip, reacted superbly to hold (33/34; 92/3).
From that point on, it was all about batting that approached sublime proportions.
Samuels, initially a shade chancy, settled down to some glorious strokeplay off pace and the off spin of Ramesh Powar; at the other end, Brian Lara signaled his form with a trademark waltz down the wicket to loft Kumble over long on, flicked the next ball fine and powered another four through long on to end the over; he then began the next one with a one-handed sweep of surpassing delicacy off the same bowler, and India in the field had well and truly unraveled.
India had gotten off the blocks like a rocket, then gradually decelerated.
On the chase, the West Indies went the opposite route, starting somewhat shakily, then gradually establishing ascendancy. The overs comparison through the upper end of the chase tells the story: Windies after 35/2 (India 33/1); 73/2 (India 95/1) after 10; 96/3 (India 122/2 in 15); 146/3 (India 151/3) in 20; 169/3 (183/3 India) after 25 and 202/3 (India 206/3) after 30.
Significantly, though the Windies were way behind at the 15 over mark, Lara and Samuels began catching up from there on and that was the period when, during the Indian innings, Dravid and Tendulkar opted to studiously milk singles and as carefully eschew any attack on the part time bowlers.
The impact of that period is best reflected in another stat: After ten overs, India's run rate was 9.5 rpo; after 15, it was 8.13; 7.55 after 20; 7.32 after 25; and 6.86 after 30. In other words, the scoring rate had actually been dragged down from 9+, to under 7 which was not optimal use of the platform and a bruised and bloodied attack.
Lara and Samuels looked for singles to keep the strike ticking over, too but unlike the Indian pair, their initial intent was aggressive, and the single was sought only if the bigger hits could not be manufactured. A classic example was the match up between Lara and Tendulkar. The bowler had taken Lara out in the previous game; here, he was getting the ball to turn square.
Here, the batsman took a single off the first ball Tendulkar bowled, ended the over with careful defensive play, then began the next over with two delectable sweeps each time, getting low, getting his front foot out of the line, and playing the shot very late, to get it impossibly fine to the fence and in the process, disrupt Tendulkar's line.
Adding to India's problems was a team selection that probably had some logic behind it, but is inexplicable from a lay point of view: In Nagpur and now in Chennai, India was presented with superb batting conditions -- in other words, conditions where you would think it is hard to keep the opposition quiet even with a full complement of bowlers.
So it was precisely in Nagpur and Chennai that India opted to go in with one bowler less than the full quota, thus putting enormous additional pressure on the four regular bowlers, leave no room for someone (ironically, in both cases, that someone was Sreesanth) having an off day, and really put the fifth bowler under the pump.
Samuels was two short of what would have been a superb century when, in the 33rd over, he wafted one-handed at a delivery from Agarkar that kept a touch low. The inner edge caught Kartick wrong-footed, but the keeper reversed direction, dived to his left and pulled off a beauty (98/95; 219/4).
Lendl Simmons was very lucky to survive a first ball LBW appeal as Agarkar reversed one into the right-hander on full length. The umpire ruled against, though, and Agarkar bowled his quota out for returns of 3/45, great work given the conditions.
India threw Anil Kumble at Simmons and, as it turned out, it was Lara who almost got out, trying to get cutesy with a rank long hop and coming within a toucher of chopping on to his stumps. But the ask when Samuels departed was just 50 runs in 16.3 overs, and having gotten his second wind with that false shot against Kumble, Lara settled back into his groove while Simmons, equal part fortune (Karthik dropped him off the inside edge) and fortitude, survived at the other end.
With the ask under 20, Lara looked to finish it off in a hurry. A typical dance ended with Powar disappearing over the wide long off boundary; an attempt at an encore however saw the ball flare off the bat for a simple skier to cover a rather needless end to a brilliant innings (83/88; Windies 256/5). Incidentally, the dismissal meant that Lara's ODI record against India continues to boast 85 as his highest score a rather strange aberration for a batsman who has creamed runs against everyone else.
He left his mates just 12 to get, though, with 55 balls to go. Dwayne Bravo blasted a four, tried to whack another one and managed only to edge Sreesanth hard and low to slip, where Raina held at the second attempt (4/6; 261/6).
At the other end, Simmons too perished. After charging Powar and blasting him over mid on for four, he pushed defensively, with hard hands, at the next ball. Powar, a classical off spinner if ever there was one, had slowed that down and held it back; the batsman merely managed to get glove onto it off pad, to be held at square leg (17/24; 265/7).
Dinesh Ramdhin put an end to the alarms by cracking a four through point to seal the win that the bowler to suffer was Sreesanth merely rounded off the tale.
India was left looking at a very big IF if only, under dream conditions, it had batted better especially in the second half of its innings, an experimental West Indies lineup without its anchor Shiv Chanderpaul would have gone down, for the third time in succession.
Incidentally, since this ODI series is about questions and answers, here's a couple to be going on with: Mahendra Singh Dhoni needs to be the first choice wicket-keeper. Karthik may be good with the bat, but behind the stumps, especially to the spinners, he is yet to find his feet.
Equally clear is that Sreesanth needs recalibration for this form of the game, and time is running out.
