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The agony ends

The 'sporting' crowd of the Eden Gardens, showed its true colours yet again on the morning of the fifth day, saying it with a barrage of stones.

Frankly, I don't get it. In the first place, when 60,000 turned up this morning, what were they anticipating?

Did they come in hope of a minor miracle from hometown hero Saurav Ganguly. Or, given the unrealistic position India found itself in, was mass masochism what drew them to the ground? A desire to wallow in humiliation, perhaps?

Whatever. India lost three quick wickets, and out came the bottles and stones, forcing an early lunch.

The players then came back out, and the stones rained down again.

Off went the players. The security forces then pushed the crowd back a few tiers, figuring that even the strongest arms wouldn't get the stones into the playing area from that distance.

The crowd promptly started pelting the television cameramen, most of them Australians, Canadians and suchlike.

Mark Antony was supposed to be an expert at crowd psychology -- since he is unavailable for comment just now, thanks to being dead these many years, I must confess myself clueless.

What precisely is this behaviour supposed to gain? What is the point they are making? Is it disappointment over Sachin's dismissal? Perhaps -- but they need to take a leaf out of Sachin's own book.

During the extended lunch break, Sachin was seen sitting in the players' enclosure, with just Prasad and Harbajan for company, talking earnestly and long at them, his gestures indicating that he was telling them what to expect from the Pakistan bowlers, and how best to cope.

You can't turn a tailender into a match-winner by simply talking to them, but you can try. And sport is about trying, about doing everything you can, not succumbing meekly.

It is this opportunity that the crowd is now denying the team, as it denied the Indians during the World Cup semifinal. That day, Vinod Kambli walked off with tears streaming down his face -- and when we asked him later, he said, "Goddamit, we might have been outplayed, but I wanted to go down fighting, I wanted to see if I could do something, make a fight of it, they didn't let me!"

My mailbox is filling up with letters -- some surprisingly acerbic, apparently the fashion is to shoot the messenger if you don't like the message -- indicating that I am out of line for blaming the Calcutta crowd, that it is a natural reaction to intense disappointment.

Finally, the security corps cleared the entire stadium. A bizarre sight, that -- a ground capable of holding one hundred and ten thousand, empty save for the players, a few family members and other favoured individuals, and the police force, witnessed the players coming out and, about two minutes later, Pakistan quick bowler Shoaib Akthar taking out the last Indian wicket, that of Prasad whom he bowled with a quick yorker, to end everyone's agony.

It was a very simple equation on the last day -- 65 runs to get for India, 4 wickets to get for Pakistan.

Neither the pitch, nor the atmospheric conditions, really need much of of a writeup, as they didn't differ appreciably from what obtained on day four.

Whatever. The spectators had barely settled in and begun cheering the pushed singles with which Ganguly and Kumble began proceedings, when Akram struck the first blow. The ball was outside off and going further away, Ganguly played a nothing shot, just jabbing at it with feet in place like you would in the middle stages of a one-day game, to find the edge and Azhar Mahmood at the sole slip, in that order. Not exacty the kind of shot you want to play in a situation like that, no percentage in it whatsoever given the field placing, but hey, well, that's what we got. India 219/7 and, for all practical purposes, out of the game.

Akram preferred to use himself and Akthar in tandem, rather than call on Saqlain Mushtaq, and it proved a good decision as Akthar bowled at blinding pace, unsettling the batsmen while Akram concentrated on line and length to rip through the batting.

Javagal Srinath got one from Akram angling across him, and in Ganguly-like fashion, jabbed his bat at it and Moin took an incredible catch, diving and picking up the ball in front of first slip, very low to the ground -- the ball at the time dropping short of Azhar Mahmood at first slip. India 224/8.

The Pakistan bowlers and fielders were fully keyed up at this point. And that showed in the next dismissal, as Kumble drove at Akram on the rise, hitting clean but a touch in the air. Afridi, at cover, took off like Superman on a mission, diving forward, getting his fingertips under the dropping ball while still airborne, and clutching on for dear life -- a blinder if ever there was one, and India 231/9 at that point, and out for the count.

But then, the Gardens crowd decided to take matters into its own hands. Bottles, fruit and finally, bits of concrete chipped from the stands came raining down, forcing the play to be halted. Akram and his team waited out in the middle till a couple of concrete chips found their way there -- at which point the Pakistan team walked off -- and left us with two contrasting images, of grace and ugliness.

The grace of the Madras crowd, that applauded every good moment in the first Test, irrespective of the identity and nationality of the player.

And a crowd, here, at the Eden Gardens -- which, the hype runs, is the most spectacular cricket venue of them all. Perhaps -- but only if India is winning, apparently, because for the second time in recent memory, that same crowd, so jovial in victory, said it with stones when faced with the prospect of their team losing.

So much, then, for the 'friendship series' -- late tonight, the Pakistan team returns home, with 17 points from its first Asian Test Championship outing to the home team's 5.

Meanwhile, an update about the Sachin Tendulkar dismissal.

I am still not clear why the BCCI has clamped down on the players, and exhorted them not to speak to the media about anything at all. Consider this -- Javagal Srinath breaks the back of the Pakistan innings, not once but twice, in the best performance of his entire career, but cannot meet the media because the board says no.

Why? The word doing the rounds is that the board does not wish to risk some ill-advised words causing controversy! Which does seem a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but then, our board moves in mysterious ways its blunders to perform.

Pakistan played the game much better -- a former diplomat in Shahryar Khan, and a very articulate captain in Akram, have been garnering all the brownie points with nice sound bytes, while the Indian team -- even its achievers -- are reduced to shrugs of the shoulders.

Back to the controversy of yesterday, meanwhile. It took a few phone calls to track down the dramatis personae -- none of whom, for obvious reasons, can talk, at least on record.

But from what I managed to piece together what transpired out there. When the appeal was made and it was referred to the third umpire, Dravid and Tendulkar met in mid-pitch, and Tendulkar smilingly told Dravid not to worry, as he had grounded his bat behind the line well ahead of deadline.

The red light shocked Tendulkar to the core, as was in any event apparent in the way he dragged himself off the ground.

Immediately on reaching the pavilion, Tendulkar headed for the match referee's cubicle and, within a toucher of tears, pointed out the relevant section of the rule book. It reads:

Either batsman shall be out run out if in running or at any time while the ball is in play -- except in the circumstances described in Law 39. (Stumped) -- he is out of his ground and his wicket is put down by the opposite side. If, however, a batsman in running makes good his ground he shall not be out Run Out, if he subsequently leaves his ground, in order to avoid injury, and the wicket is put down.

Tendulkar's argument -- a well taken one -- was that when he grounded his bat at the bowler's end, as he clearly had done, he had completed his run. The lifting of the bat subsequently was due to the collision, which comes under the 'in order to avoid injury' clause. And that, therefore, he could not have been given out, under the laws. He insisted that the match referee take another look at the replay, which was why the incident was shown two, three times while Azhar was at the crease.

Cammie Smith, the match referee, rubbed salt in the wounds by consolingly informing the Indian batsman that he had a point, but that in any case, nothing could now be done about it as the next batsman had already addressed a few deliveries.

Tendulkar then went back to the dressing room in tears -- and was less than enthused when, immediately thereafter, the officials, with Dalmiya for company, asked him to take a walk around the stadium and cool things down. That lack of enthusiasm in any case showed in the way he performed that duty, walking the perimeter with his head down, occasionally coming up with a half-hearted wave.

In any event, the game has ended -- and with that, Calcutta's agony.

At the presentation -- crowd or no, the television formalities have to be gone through -- Azhar said, "I thought we made a mistake when after getting them to 26/6, we let them get to 185... we did not bat well in the first innings and also in the second innings, after getting that good start... it was difficult to play after 40 overs, it was reverse swinging all the time".

Asked about the forthcoming Test in Sri Lanka, Azhar said, "Yes, we have to put this behind us and play to our potential, and make sure we get to the final."

Sound bytes from Akram: "When we were shot out for 185, we had a team meeting and everyone said they were bent on winning, that determination helped us pull back... it was a good pitch, had something for the fast bowlers and spinners and also for the strokeplayers... The Pakistan team is used to hiccups, we have them all the time but we never stop fighting, all credit to the team for hanging together and pulling it off..."

Cammie Smith, match referee, awarded the man of the match to Javagal Srinath and Saeed Anwar in tandem, saying it was impossible to seperate their individual performances and say which was the better one.

Anwar, accepting his share of the award, said, when asked about the pitch, "Yes, it was a good pitch, I hope we get pitches like this more often in India... but then, when you get runs every pitch is a good pitch and when you don't, every pitch is a bad pitch... When Azhar dropped my catch when I was on two, I knew I would get a good score, Azhar is lucky that way, he doesn't often drop catches but when he does, the batsman always benefits and it was my turn here..."

A clearly disgruntled Srinath: "I guess it would have been nice to have won this award as part of the winning team.... I guess it was unfortunate that we lost... we couldn't get Anwar out and that turned the match, we had a chance but finally he pulled the game away..."

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