India vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test, Galle 4th day's play
August 3rd 2008 12:02
That was as fine a 30 I have ever seen. Tendulkar's 30 runs may not be too many and he may have fell to an old indiscretion outside the offstump. But it summed up his class, potential and the boundless skill he stands for.
Batting was made quintessentially easy against the same bowlers who made India dance to their tunes. No, the Lankans were not bowling badly. It was just that Tendulkar had the attack by its scruff. A skip down the track and casual loft above long on was the stand out stroke. Especially because Mendis had seen the move and had bowled the off spinner trying to cramp the batsman for room, but Tendulkar adjusted beautifully and did not try to overhit the ball. A mature stroke that.
Earlier Gambhir was patience and steadiness personified as he seemed to be edging ever closer to a Test century. But that was not to be. Mendis was again Gambhir's villain. A brute of a delivery, drifting down the legside, hitting the pitch, turning topsy turvy and bisecting Gambhir's outstretched leg and hidden bat and gloves to disturb the bails. That was a true magic delivery and Gambhir can consider himself most unlucky. The stand out stroke for Gambhir was a sweep shot from not quite a sweep-able ball. Murali had actually fooled Gambhir in the flight and had him committed to the sweep quite early. The ball was very full on middle stump. A lesser batsman would have continued with the sweep shot normally and would not have made contact to be declared dead LBW. But Gambhir, extremely intelligently, cut down the arc on the sweep shot by not freezing his arms and keeping his elbows loose. That meant that he could get his bat to hit closer to his pads and not extend forward. Special shot that.
Next we come to Dravid. A lot of nonsense has been written about him. A lot of people have written him off. And to be frank, he has not exactly inspired confidence in the crease against the newcomer Mendis. But people always somehow forget what they say about form and class. And here class shone through in spades.
Dravid did indeed start off Mendis awkwardly. Very awkwardly. He again did not seem to have the measure of that leg cutter/carrom ball that Mendis bowls with so much control. To be honest, one of those leg cutters was a devilish delivery which pitched on middle and carried on almost to the 6th stump causing trouble to even the keeper. Dravid could not have touched it even if he had made the most determined attempt to. In fact that ball resembled an outswinger more than a simple leg spinner. And then there was another ball in the same over which was bowled with the same action but did not spin at all.
Somehow Dravid weathered that initial onslaught and also made sure that the bad balls were promptly punished. Backfoot cuts and off drives were on display and when Dravid pulls out that ever so graceful backfoot cover drive of his you know things are well with the world. Gradually he grew so much in confidence that he charged down the pitch to Mendis and deposited him to the long on boundary. And just when he seemed to be going very well in partnership with Tendulkar, the latter fell to an indiscretion outside off stump. Vaas had bowled the fastish off cutter and Tendulkar fell for the obvious ploy. Jayawardene had a slip and a gully waiting for exactly that. One cant but appreciate Jayawardene's captaincy nous and his ability to gauge opposition batsmen perfectly. But it was a silly end to Tendulkar's knock that promised much more.
However, as has been the case so often in this series, technology butted in to dislodge Dravid. Chalk one more down for technology. That guy is not doing too badly with the wickets tally in this series, actually. What a pity that many of those wickets did not deserve to be given out at all.
Murali bowls around the wicket to Dravid and the batsman stretches forward to smother the spin and sweep the ball to midwicket. The ball pitched just outside the offstump (which is not what Hawkeye thought) and was hitting the batsman in line. But the ball still had a couple more metres to travel and in all probability would have passed above the stumps - at least to most umpires' eyes. In fact not out was the call from the main umpire. And after a humongous delay, Gamini Silva declared the batsman out.
Another horrible decision. How Gamini Silva gave Samaraweera not out on that run out call is beyond me. Similarly how Sehwag was given out LBW in the first innings and Dravid this time are all puzzles for us to decipher.
Few words to Dave Richardson of the ICC - it is not apparently clear who is making the decision - the main umpire, the 3rd umpire or Hawkeye itself!!!
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