Swing, swagger and smile

The world was a happier place for Irfan Pathan today because the new ball swung. And with the movement came a smile, a skip and a bag of wic...

The world was a happier place for Irfan Pathan today because the new ball swung. And with the movement came a smile, a skip and a bag of wickets. When he gets the ball to slant wickedly in, Pathan can be a handful; when he doesn’t he can look slow and limited. He got to 50 wickets today, ahead of the great Kapil Dev, and while that merits celebration it requires introspection as well. Of his 50 wickets, 23 have come in 3 tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, the other 11 have produced 27. There is promise but there is much to do.

To Sehwag on the other hand, it seems to matter little whether the red ball on its way to him has been delivered from the hands of a McGrath or a Mahwire; whether it is going to land on brown turf or green grass. He sets his sights on the ball and the bat takes over, often hitting, sometimes missing and Blessing Mahwire saw both worlds; ruthless punishment and strange surrender. Funnily the harmless looking ball that slipped in and hit leg stump seemed destined to go elsewhere initially.

While everyone was watching Sehwag, and he is always top billing when he is batting, Gautam Gambhir was scoring an equal number of runs at the other end and the two complement each other quite well. One day he will start cashing in, though, for he does all the hard work and then squanders it in a moment.

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Not so with Rahul Dravid and yet it was a rare lapse in concentration that nipped a very pretty innings in the bud. He shepherded Laxman in the course of a partnership of 130 with some classy shots.

Increasingly he grows more aggressive, more certain of his role in this Indian team and its history; increasingly the first hour belongs to him rather than to the bowler. He batted like a batsman with little to prove even as Laxman suggested he was making a point. And so it was that Laxman’s first fifty runs were laboured, the object in his hand a mere piece of wood rather than the wand it normally is, and was to be later in the evening.

Initially he pushed, he nudged and he impersonated a nameless cricketer. But the poverty of the bowling was such that he strolled to a half century and, the point seemingly made, emerged after tea without the mask.

Then, like the jacarandas in Bulawayo, he flowered. The fielders seemed to vanish, the gaps remained and he pierced them at will. The feet, once static, came down to meet the spinner’s offering and the ball found itself dispatched to distant corners. Laxman is back in form and in his rightful place in Indian cricket.

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Meanwhile the captain had walked in, his career in balance, his captaincy tenuous but his sense of humour intact! Ganguly is aware of where he stands in the current structure and while he must be insecure, he is quite willing to see the lighter side of life. He started slowly and the pitch, with its slow bounce, was his ally. In all fairness there was little to suggest he was out of form but he wasn’t going to let the opportunity wither away. A square cut was beautifully crunched and, when Streak dropped short, he waved the ball down to square leg.

And yet, we run the risk of reading too much into this performance. The bowling was at best ordinary, it was like setting a middle school paper for a university student. You couldn’t ask for more if you wanted to get back into form. But good batsmen need no more than to believe in themselves and these runs will come in handy.

Zimbabwe (1st Innings): B Taylor c Gambhir b Khan 13, T Duffin lbw Pathan 56, H Mazakadsa c Karthik b Khan 14, D Ebrahim c&b Pathan 24, T Taibu not out 71, H Streak c Dravid b Kumble 27, C Coventry lbw Kumble 2, A Blignaut lbw Khan 4, K Daben-gwa c Laxman b Pathan 35, G Ewing lbw Pathan 0, B Mahwire lbw Pathan 4, Extras (b1, lb7, nb20, w1) 29; Total (all out in 98.5 overs) 279. Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-45, 3-119, 4-124, 5-193, 6-197, 7-210, 8-269, 9-269. Bowling: Pathan 18.5-3-58-5, Khan 22-5-74-3, Ganguly 1-1-0-0, Kumble 26-7-71-2, Harbhajan 26-5-55-0, Sehwag 5-1-13-0.

India (1st Innings): G Ghambir c Taylor b Mahwire 46, V Sehwag b Mahwire 44, R Dravid c Taylor b Mahwire 77, VVS Laxman batting 125, S Ganguly batting 23, Extras (lb-5, w-1, nb-4) 10; Total (for 3 wkts, 82 overs) 325. Fall of wickets: 1-88, 2-98, 3-128. Bowling: Streak 30-3-67-0, Mahwire 16-2-67-3, Blignaut 12-1-71-0, Dabengwa 12-0-454-0, Ewing 22-3-70-0.