A slam dunk in Mumbai

By Anil - 12 Oct, '02
October 12 2002

India has completed its biggest defeat of the West Indies team to start off the 3-Test series with a bang. It was a total team performance, even if Sehwag and Harbhajan shone brighter than the rest.

After seeing the West Indians bowled out twice in 1.5 days to lose by a huge innings and 112 runs margin to the resurgent Indian team, a number of things come to mind:

• Another "biggest ever" Test win - this time, the first innings defeat over the Windies. Soon after the biggest ever win abroad, the one in Leeds in typically English conditions which India also won by an innings after enforcing the followon.
• The complete dominance of the Indian team in most sessions - there was no letup, no mercy, for the hapless opposition.
• It was set up by a huge opening partnership, something that has been an Achilles heel for India in the past. Have we solved our opening problems at long last?
• The success was equally owed to an all round bowling attack - pace skittled the Windies lineup in the first innings, and spin destroyed them in the second. While Harbhajan and Kumble were unplayable on the 4th day, Zaheer's hostile spell did the job on day 3, along with admirable support from Srinath and Bangar.
• A wicketkeeper who not only performed magnificently on a bouncy, spinning, hissing pitch, but also stuck in stubbornly and contributed solid runs at the bottom of the order. Good to see the glimmers of a class wicketkeeper-batsman finally in young Parthiv Patel.
• Bangar contributed superbly with both bat and ball. For now, we can claim that the allrounder spot has been filled!

Although Sehwag won the Man of the Match award deservedly with his brilliant big century at the top of the order in the first innings in high heat and humidity, at a time when the Windies pacemen were using the early life in the pitch to the best of their ability, the magnificent performance by Harbhajan also deserves to be mentioned as equally important. It is far too easy to forget that bowling wins Test matches, and our bowling has been far weaker than our batting in the past. Harbhajan deserves accolades for his 7-wicket haul in the second innings, ably supported by Kumble who picked up the other 3. Nagamootoo got none of the success that the Indians did, and while the media is inclined to give part of the credit to the pitch, it is Harbhajan's brilliance that is to be credited far more than helpful conditions.

The pacemen were very effective as well, and it felt like Srinath has moved to the supporting role with sensible line and length bowling, surrendering the spearhead role to the aggressive Zaheer. He certainly was a much better fit in that capacity than Nehra and Agarkar have been in the recent past, on a pitch unhelpful to pace bowlers. The bouncer war by Sanjay Bangar at the end of third day did its bit to keep the Windies batsmen unnerved.

Finally, Ganguly's captaincy cannot be lauded highly enough, even though he was robbed of the chance to contribute with the bat by a bad LBW decision (off an outside-leg delivery) from umpire Asoka De Silva, who has given more than his fair share of bad decisions to the key Indian batsmen over the last one year. Ganguly's handling of the bowlers, field settings, as well as customary aggressiveness on field, were there for all to see. The team work and team spirit is at a level rarely seen before in an Indian side, and it is a joy to behold. In a very short amount of time, Ganguly is close to being the winningest Indian captain ever.

But the job is not yet done, and now is the time to apply more pressure than ever before on the Windies on another rebuilt pitch in Chennai/Madras. While the promised pace and bounce of the newly relaid strip in Mumbai did not materialize - and it is not clear whether the New Zealand consultants or the curator or the BCCI are to be blamed for this - it will be interesting to see if Chennai will be any different, because the Mumbai match was moved forward ahead of schedule. Chennai has always been a happy hunting ground for Sachin Tendulkar, and the Windies will be worried about how much worse it could be with the master batsman chipping in with a big contribution. India have displayed a tendency to mentally relax and underestimate the opposition after easily winning an opening Test, as in the recent series abroad against Zimbabwe and the West Indies. The goal of the Indians must be nothing less than to maul the Windies in Chennai by an even bigger margin than in Mumbai.