Outplayed at every turn
Devanand Ramachandren - 4 May 2002

Carl Hooper could not have asked for more. After the second day's play, the West Indies had lost just four wickets and taken a total lead of 212 . They will now be looking to add a few more on the third day before trying to effect an innings victory that, at the moment, looks probably unless the Indians play with much more discipline in their second essay.

Sheer discipline was on display on the second day. Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul all had their quotas of problems, but they just stuck around, got their runs off the bad balls, and played out 90 overs without much fuss.

There was some action though, first in the form of Chris Gayle losing his wicket and then Ashish Nehra sending back Lara and Sarwan in successive overs to give the Indian fans some hope. After that, all the action was provided by Hooper and Chanderpaul, who took their time to settle in before going after the bowling in the last hour or so.

Sometimes it is hard to understand why Sourav Ganguly fails to attack when he should. Just when Lara and Sarwan had gotten themselves out, he had Harbhajan Singh bowling when he should have been giving Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra a go at the new batsmen. All Harbhajan did was restrict the scoring rate and give the batsmen time to settle down. By the time Zaheer came on to replace Nehra, the duo had the measure of the wicket.

Nehra bowled brilliantly, Zaheer supported him well, and Ganguly bowled a restrictive spell.The biggest disappointment of the day, however, was Javagal Srinath. Somehow he did not really settle into a rhythm and struggled through all his spells during the day.

The new ball came and went without any effect, though the West Indies were lucky to not lose any wickets. But the Indians clearly were a bowler short, and a Sanjay Bangar in the side could have helped in at least taking the reins temporarily from three tiring pacemen.

But despite everything, there is hardly much reason to point fingers only at Ganguly. A score of 102 is definitely not a defendable score on a pitch that is far from being loaded with dynamite. So far the Indians have been outplayed in every department of the game in this match. If only the International Cricket Council would let India field 17 players instead of 11, so that they could get the balance right.

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