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Baroda blues

We travelled to Baroda in a very positive frame of mind, with eight points in our kitty and a comfortable one-day win over traditional rivals Maharashtra. After a couple of gruelling, but enjoyable practice sessions, we went to bed with a lot to look forward to in the next five days.

November 21: A 9 am start for a one-dayer always puts a lot of stake on the toss. The IPCL track looked nice and firm and promised a lot of runs. The outfield looked in good nick and anything in the gaps was a fair bet to reach the fence.

Amol Mazumdar lost the toss and we were put in. We lost Manoj Joglekar early on, trying to pull and then I joined Rajesh Sutar and watched him banish two perfectly good deliveries over extra cover for sixes.

My motivation to give my dad a good birthday present went awry when I failed to make my ground and was beaten by a direct throw from extra cover. I seemed to have set the trend for the day, as Mumbai lost four more top order batters to run-outs later on in the innings. And what should have been a 275-plus score turned out to be 156.

At the end of the day, it was just not good enough on that wicket and we ended up losing the game in the 43rd over.

Ajit Bhoite played well for Baroda and saw them through a couple of tough periods, when our fielding and accurate bowling put them under pressure. The pluses were more for Baroda, and when we talked about this aspect, Amol and our coach, Ashok Mankad, urged us to look forward to the next game and put the loss behind and focus our minds on the job ahead.

Baroda were the ones with the psychological advantage for the four-dayer. Over the past three seasons they have become a bit of a bogey team for us and that was a major motivation for us to set the record right and turn it around. We lost the toss again and began badly, losing Amit Pagnis, who had come in for Joglekar, to an absolute snorter from Zaheer Khan. Zaheer, incidentally, seems to be on top of his game this year. There was talk amongst a few guys all over the country that he is bowling well and has added a couple of yards to his pace -- and this he showed in plenty. The bouncer he bowled to me -- first ball -- was quick and I had to be on my toes to see that it didn’t hit me on the head, because that was where Zaheer had aimed it. Zaheer is a genial guy off the field, but like any bowler, he hates batters and his looks certainly conveyed that he did not want me there.

I did not last long, playing at a ball I should have left alone. We were 8 for 2 at that stage and we desperately needed a partnership. Amol and Wasim provided us just that and put on a superb partnership together. They both looked good enough for the magical three figure mark, but Amol was out lbw for 80 and Wasim was out, top-edging an intended hook shot to the keeper, Mewada.

Vinod was beaten by reverse swing from the left-handed Khan and what looked to be 450 at one stage, was 335, thanks to some good late order resistance from Rajesh Pawar, our pocket-sized dynamo.

We went in to field knowing that we needed to be on top of our game and that the placid IPCL wicket would be a beauty to bat on and we had to keep a strong discipline in our bowling and fielding. There is a different kind of beauty in four-day cricket; there are subtle shifts in the positions and the onus is rarely with one side all day long, and you will rarely see one side dominate the entire day’s proceedings completely.

Baroda dominated the first session. They batted in and then Nilesh Kulkarni hit back for us with two quick wickets. Then Rajesh Pawar had the previous match’s centurion, Himanshu Jadhav, leg before wicket. At the end of the day, 110 for 3 was a much better scorecard for us.

Day three: There have been so many cricketers who have been unlucky not to play for the country for whatever reasons - and Tushar Arothe is a prime example. He is a genuine allrounder, who bats at 5 or 6 (lefthanded) and also bowls lovely 'offies' which turn on the flattest of tracks. He scored a 100 for Baroda two years ago and also an important 60-odd last year when they beat us outright. Today, thankfully, was not to be his day and Nilesh snared him, caught and bowled after tying him down for a fair bit. It was good captaincy by Amol as well, as he kept the right fieldsmen in the right places, and generally choked the normally free-flowing 'Tosh'.

We then got another two wickets quickly, but then Satyajit Parab played an innings which he will never forget. As a sportsman, your main motivation is to play a role that will have a major bearing in the success of your side. And he did just that. Having played circumspectly the evening before, he then unleashed some fine off drives and lofted shots and also juggled the strike well with Mewada, thereby nursing him along. As he was going about his job of very intelligently seeing his side through to safety, I could not help remembering what Kiran More had said to our coach Ashok Mankad the previous day. He told Ashok Sir that Prab is the guy to watch out for. We fought back later on in the day, with Mewada needlessly hitting it straight down my throat at deep mid wicket, and then Parab succumbing to a superbly motivated spell by the rejuvenated Paras Mhambrey.

Who ever says that four-day cricket is boring, better think again. The game was tantalisingly poised at the end of the day at 322 for 9, with Baroda needing 13 more to gain first innings points.

Day four: I headed straight for the ground and got the coach to hit me a few high balls, as I had this terrible nightmare of Zaheer Khan miss-hitting one high in the air, in my direction, and me dropping it. So, to make my muscle memory nice and strong again, I got the boss to give me some extra fielding practice. As it turned out, it was a couple of slogs which did not got to hand and a streaky boundary to third man which saw Baroda through.

The rest of the day was only of academic interest and I made full use of the four-and-a-half hours of batting we had to post my 12th Ranji ton. 'A hundred is a hundred,' is what any batter would say, but as I untied my pads in the dressing room, I could not help thinking that the result would have been more gratifying had I got to three figures in the first dig.