Mission impossible: part II

As their coach John Buchanan wrote in this paper this morning, Australia go out with several plans and strategies. When their normal hell-for-leather batting style failed to click, they had Plan B ready. That meant playing out the overs, getting as many runs on the board and then bowling tight and fielding like tigers.

Which is exactly what they did. In a word, it8217;s called professionalism.

What will rankle India the most 8212; and Dravid was worked up enough to call it a 8216;cardinal sin8217; 8212; was that they couldn8217;t even last out the overs. If India got the basics right in the bowling department, they forgot the first rule of batting: one person playing anchor while others score. This was, perhaps, not the occasion for Dravid to practice his new-found aggression; with a small target and overs in hand, he should have stuck around.

In the end, the cream of Indian batting was forced to watch from the dressing-room while Badani and, briefly, Agarkar, showed how it could be done. Then the last four wickets fell for just 12 runs and Ponting8217;s men were home.

The pity is, India had their best day with the ball in a long while against Australia. The best bowler was Murali Kartik, whose spell on the Australians would have evoked mixed reactions from the VIP stand at the Eden Gardens today. The happiest would have been three of India8217;s famous spin quartet 8212; Erapalli Prasana, Bishan Bedi and Srinivas Venkatraghavan 8212; who are here on the BCCI8217;s invitation. But the national selectors, looking on, must have been wondering how they left the left-armer out of the team for Australia.

Kartik himself must have been pretty confused. Dropped for the tour, he was picked for this key match ahead of Anil Kumble and then handed the ball ahead of Harbhajan Singh as first change bowler. After bamboozling the batsmen 8212; and, often, the close-in fielders too 8212; he ended with figures of 1/30 off his 10, which only partially reflect the role he played in the innings.

Equally heartening was the discipline of Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan; their crucial first four overs yielded only 16 runs and their early accuracy 8212; the first wide was in the seventh over 8212; kept the Australian openers in check.

Agarkar8217;s dismissal of Gilchrist with a slow yorker signified the way the opening bowlers bowled 8212; using their heads and keeping their cool.

Then the spinners took over. That Kartik conceded just one boundary reflects the control he had. Since the top-order batsmen had been taken care by the pacers the relatively inexperienced middle-order were found wanting against the Kartik-Harbhajan combination.

Damien Martyn and Andrew Symonds seemed not too sure of their footwork and the spinners by bowling a bit slow had them in knots. Skipper Ponting, too, wasn8217;t his usual self. Kartik kept him in the crease and allowed him to just play square of the wicket. Then, in the space of one over, he had him out twice 8212; Laxman in the slips dropped the first but held on to the second. Bevan and Clarke to some extent stemmed the rot to take Australia to a respectable total.