In the third eye of the storm

IF YOU are in a permanent state of fantasised high about that air hostess, you crashland with the thud India did at the Premadasa last Sunday. The ground hostess waiting with open arms there, to welcome Sourav's India into her dated fold, was not a denouement that Navjot Singh Sidhu, for one, had cared to envision. A 99 nudge by Sanath Jayasuriya and Indian wickets tumbled exactly like that Navjot-pictured ``row of bicycles'' for Sidhu to sound deflated - even as Sourav stood defeated, yet again, in the final analysis. The way India came to be annihilated by 121 runs, full to the brim was Sourav's Coca-Cola Cup.

Rewind to how yet another Coca-Cola Cup had (similarly suddenly) lost its fizz for Sourav's India on the Saturday of July 7, 2001, as Carl Hooper's West Indies had us by the gullet, once it squeezed the genie back into the bottle in the `0' shape of Sachin. That D-day, only on paper did Sourav's India lose by but 16 runs. India's 274-for-8 rejoinder to the West Indies' 290 was, in essence, the dextrous handiwork of Reetinder Singh Sodhi (67 off 75 balls)) and Sameer Dighe (unbeaten with 94 from 96 balls), the two striking some ego-salvaging blows in a stand of 101 after that Windies-set target of 291 had seen Sourav's India reduced to 80 for 5. As we so put up a stand only `the day after the Calypso fair', we had Sourav sulking about how one choking final match was hard on the losers - about how the Cup Final should be Best of Three. It certainly is Best of Three now - if in a different sense altogether. The three now in the one-day opening-slot telepicture are Sourav, Sachin and Virender Sehwag. Sourav's recent track record, as a one-day pacemaker, suggests that such a Best-of- Three test-drive could conceivably find Sachin and Virender emerging as India's new opening pair!

No way am I reading too much into the dream 100 of Virender Sehwag having us rollercoasting into that Colomboosting final at the handsome 264-expense of New Zealand. I am just venturing to bring into perspective how consistently inconsistent Sourav has been, even at the one- day game, in which Pricewaterhousekeepers (while scientifically placing Sachin in the Wisden-redeeming position of Number One in Tests and ODIs alike) rates Sourav, in the shorter version of the game, as the world's no. 5 still. But, as one batting at no. 5 for India in Tests, it sadly ranks Sourav as low as 45th in this sterner form of cricket. And it is this five-day Ganguly placement - a placement no longer eye- catchingly piercing the offside cordon - that is our spot worry as Sourav (come the eve of Independence Day) leads India through three Tests in Sri Lanka. Sourav, as a fresher, had his best Test run against Sri Lanka with a Colombo scoreline of 0; 147 and 45 during the August 1997 two-Test series. Sourav followed that up (just three months later against Sri Lanka) with 109 in the Mohali Test; 99 in the Nagpur Test; 173 and 11 in the Mumbai Test. This was the six-soaring hour in which viewers felt that Sourav was beginning to peak as an international performer in the vivid wake of his stunning June-July 1996 Test-series debut in England: 131 at Lord's; 136 and 48 at Trent Bridge.

In August 2001, even Sourav's lineage as a one-day opener is in recurring doubt. What is disturbing about Sourav's batsmanship, today, is that there is no sense of assurance about him as you see him ask for `Amay Khurasiya' guard at the wicket. We now almost expect Sourav not to score each time he goes out to bat. This after, as the thoroughbred straining at the leash, Sourav had us mentally running every India run with him, as India's captain, the way he played the Kangaroos at their own penny- pouching game to pull off that miracle 2-1 win, all but duplicating the feat, 3-2, in the one-day series. That Goa treasure hunt of 74 by Sourav - a hunt that Steve Waugh was able to halt only via the meanest bouncer that he could get Glenn McGrath to spring in a one-dayer - suggested that Sourav's Britannia blade stood honed fine again.

It is Sourav's abiding run of failings in the one-day contest since (broken by the odd 62, 69 or 64) that has had us wondering about which edge of the bat Ganguly is now out to use! For the meat of his bat visibly came into play only as Sourav dropped himself down to no. 5 while striking that 69 in the second Tri- series match that we lost to Sri Lanka by the 6 runs we customarily expect from Ganguly's willow. The tame fashion in which Sourav perished in the backward short-leg area - the two times he got past the 50-mark in this tournament - was as agonising to view as the number of occasions on which we saw Ganguly put up a meek catch in his pet stroking `square' on the offside. His achievements as captain have for long now masked Sourav's shortfall as a batsman. Just replay, in your mind's eye, the ultra-harsh view that watchers took of that Sachin duck in `the zero hour' after the West Indies had run up a total of 290 during the July 7 Harare final. Forgotten in a trice was the wondrous lead-up to that one failure by a Sachin flaunting run- sequence of 70, 9, 81 not out and 122 not out. How the Here and Now alone matters on TV! Sachin had failed India in the final, so that the viewing public saw that Nine Network duck as the end of the world number one.

Here is where I say Sourav has got away lightly. Once, just once, lately have we viewed Sourav flower as an opener in the ODI company of Sachin. This was in that Harare one-dayer vs the West Indies not affecting our passage into the final, yet keeping Sachin (122) motivated enough to bat through the Indian innings (230 for 4 from 48.1 overs in response to the Caribbeans' 229 for 5 in 50 overs). Sourav hit 62 that time in an opening stand of 133 reminiscent of the Ganguly-Tendulkar times that were. For the rest, Sourav has worked by fits and starts. A happy event it is that Dona is expecting (according to a little bird called Sunil). Let that be the impetus for Sourav to deliver during the Test series in Sri Lanka - a team against which Ganguly started flourishing soon after he hitched his wagon to Dona. For Sachin never ever to hitch his `Sehwagon' to Virender, Sourav strikes now or never! Even if it be in Test matches, nothing like spending time in the middle to get the Tendulkar-factor opener- equation right again.In a tete-a-tete with Bhogle the day India lost their third match on the trot, Harsha came out with the view that it would be a pity if we withdrew the captaincy from Sourav now, looking to the fierce sense of motivation that Ganguly, as a leader of men, has brought to the Indian team. Whereupon I pointed out that Sourav had necessarily to score as batsman and helmsman alike for him to retain the job from a position of strength. The point about Sourav is that he has let all that `needle' as a leader blunt the keen edge of his Britannia blade. If the youngsters in his charge (like Yuveraj Singh, Hemang Badani and Virender Sehwag) displayed no consistency of Sri Lankan effort, it was largely because Sourav failed to set a scoring example to them. Just take that key Wednesday of August 1 when Sourav returned as captain after sitting out one match through a renewed show of petulance centrestage. Ganguly might have been the victim of more than one bad decision in recent times, but that is the rub of the green by which the red light comes into such fatal play.

If he is to mature as a captain, Steve Waugh style, Sourav simply must learn, judiciously, to pull his punches. Sourav's reaction, upon the umpire's turning down that caught-behind appeal against Russel Arnold (21) off his own bowling, could not have been worse timed. Indeed, Sourav here was observed to be lucky that the same umpire had not ruled the same ball to be a wide - even as Sameer Dighe snapped up the low Arnold `edge' wide on the offside. Arnold fell lbw to Ganguly almost immediately after for Sourav to lose all poise, reminding vintage viewers of what Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi had once noted: ``If the captain himself fails to play it cool, how is he going to control his players on the field?''

Here is where vice-captain Rahul Dravid endeared himself to all India by running up to urge Sourav not to persist in creating a scene on the small screen. By that single act of level-headed restraint, Rahul demonstrated that he had the savvy to take over the reins, from Sourav, any time, any place. Pals the two might be, but Sourav still has to watch out, for Rahul has merely said that, ``for the time being'', he is happy to be playing under Ganguly. Where Rahul has serenely kept scoring for India since being put on his mettle by Laxman, Sourav is `visualised' to be steadily losing ground, at home and abroad, as a rungetter first and a skipper only alongside. The scale of India's defeat (by 121 runs while being viewed as wild-goose chasing 296) hurt like hell. It hurt Sourav's cause all the more as it was a chase to which Ganguly could contribute but a measly single. So - after that cataclysmic Virender Sehwag (4) run out - `on the line' Sourav's job certainly is. The spectacle of a captain caught in the third eye of the storm is what Sourav presents as the MAX campaign is set to begin afresh in Sri Lanka. Testimony to his batsmanship and leadership alike the three-match series in Sri Lanka has to be for Sourav to regain the sheen shed as one of the game's leading lights.

RAJU BHARATAN

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