Jamaican punch knocks out Indians

The Indians made no mistakes in pressing the self-destruct buttons and blew up a chance to level the scores against the West Indies at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium here on Saturday. Barring the seasoned Javagal Srinath, all the other bowlers jostled to reach out for the destructive switch activated first by a resurgent opposition and then by some pedestrian bowling. In the event, West Indies batsmen smashed their way to script a resounding seven-wicket victory as the Indians made a hash of defending a respectable total of 279 runs.

SCOREBOARD

India: S Ganguly c Drakes b Nagamootoo 78, V Sehwag c Dillon b Drakes 1, A Agarkar c Sarwan b Dillon 6, VVS Laxman st Jacobs b Gayle 99, H Singh c sub (Powell) b Nagamootoo 2, R Dravid run out 51, Y Singh c Chanderpaul b Drakes 1, M Kaif not out 12, J Srinath run out 2, A Kumble b Drakes 2, A Nehra not out 2; Extras (lb-5, nb-10, w-8): 23 Total: (For 9 wkts, in 47 overs) 279 Bowling: Dillon 10-0-59-1, Drakes 9-0-55-3, Collymore 4-0-35-0, Hooper 9-1-42-0, Nagamootoo 10-0-49-2, Gayle 5-0-34-1 West Indies: C Gayle b Srinath 103, W Hinds c Agarkar b Srinath 27, M Samuels c Kaif b Sehwag 52, R Sarwan not out 39, S Chanderpaul not out 39; Extras (b-6, lb-6, nb-1, w-7): 20 Total: (For 3 wkts, in 46.2 overs) 280 Fall of wickets: 1-42, 2-176, 3-221 Bowling: Srinath 9.2-1-35-2, Nehra 10-0-67-0, Agarkar 7-0-47-0, Sehwag 8-0-51-1, Harbhajan 6-0-35-0, Kumble 6-0-33-0

If Harbhajan Singh lacked direction, Anil Kumble proved to be ineffective and so did Ashish Nehra and Ajit Agarkar, who were being taken to the cleaners at will providing a grim reminder how toothless the Indian attack looks in the absence of the injured Zaheer Khan.

Opener Chris Gayle (103) and Marlon Samuels (52) laid the foundations with a rollicking association of 134 runs off 132 balls for the second wicket. And once these two departed, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul showed scant respect to their Indian origins, clobbering 58 runs off 48 balls to guide the team to an emphatic success.

The Gayle force had come into effect after the opening combination had been broken by Srinath. The 23-year-old lanky Jamaican in the company of Samuels simply waded into the Indian attack and went on to log his maiden ton in the shorter version.

The day had begun ominously for the hosts with skipper Saurav Ganguly losing the toss and then opener Virender Sehwag (1), who seemed to have been sorted out by the opposition. An experimental failure followed as Ajit Agarkar (6) too departed. Ganguly (78) steered the ship out of trouble waters by not only judging the slow nature of the track admirably but also stepping on the run-accelerator.

Another example of the visitors having done their homework well was evident when their spinners—Carl Hooper and Mahendra Nagamoottoo—curbed Ganguly’s long hoicks. Though he eventually fell attempting one, the Indian skipper had strung a record partnership of 128 runs for the third wicket in company of the tenacious Venkata Sai Laxman (99). Ganguly also crossed the 8000-run milestone during this knock. A minor aberration in tactics seemed to have occurred when Harbhajan Singh was sent ahead of a line-up comprising Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh and Mohd Kaif to step up the run-rate. Sanity returned with the exit of Harbhajan (2). Dravid then took a master class in compiling runs at a faster clip cracking 51 runs off 40 balls.

Though he departed trying to steal the hundreth run for Laxman, the latter did little justice by frittering away an opportunity to post his second ton in ODIs. These two dismissals triggered a collapse as India, who were sitting pretty at 260-4 lost five wickets for twelve runs, which slowed the pace of the innings.