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DEAR REDIFF

Lara lights up the gloom

Prem Panicker

Thank god for Brian Charles Lara.

Batting without a care in the world - and what care could you possibly have if you are coming in to bat, for the first time in the game, after tea on the fifth day? - the left-hander lit up the gloom at the Bourda, in Georgetown, Guyana, with 31 minutes of scintillant strokeplay.

It goes to show you just how much the people of Guyana are starved for quality cricket that a good 5,000-odd turned up to watch proceedings on this last day of what has been a most futile exercise in Test cricket.

And it says much for their patience that despite the Indians batting, this morning, as grimly as they would have played if they were fighting to save the match, the spectators still didn't give up.

So Lara came out, and rewarded them with strokes of breathtaking brilliance, slamming 30 off 16 deliveries with six fours and a huge six off Sunil Joshi. Two of those fours, delicate steers to third man off Dodda Ganesh, were regulation stuff for a batsman of that calibre. But the four fours he hit in Anil Kumble's second over, after the Indian leggie had dismissed opener Sherwin Campbell in his first, were pure magic. A square drive to the top spinner, a breathtaking coverdrive, a flick over midwicket for four and, a ball later, yet another flick this one over mid on, all had the stamp of the master.

It seemed that he was determined to provide the patient crowd some fireworks, and it was only in trying to hit a second successive six off Sunil Joshi that he perished in the deep, well caught by a back-peddling Navjot Singh Sidhu.

Earlier, India had resumed at the overnight score of 241/4. One thing I fail to understand is why the Indian board, presumably in consultation with the tour management, turned down a request from the West Indies board that a festival one-day game be played today.

A similar proposal had been made earlier, when rain hit the fourth Test. On that occasion, India turned it down, and quite right too - with a Test match to come, the Indians quite properly decided that they needed practise in the longer version of the game.

But that same logic should have impelled the Indians to grab a chance to play a one-dayer today. From this Saturday, they are due to play an ODI series against the West Indies. Key players, like Robin Singh for instance, are desperately short of match practise. Again, with Sidhu's return, the opener's slot is a problem - if Sidhu opens with Tendulkar, then where does Saurav Ganguly go? Then there is the question of Noel David - it would be a good idea to give him a bowl. If he can get through a tight ten overs, then he could take precedence over Sunil Joshi, as David is undoubtedly the better fielder.

Thus, a practise one-dayer against the full Windies team would have given Tendulkar and his men a chance to try out some permutations and combinations - and as such, it should have been grabbed.

But no, the Indian board turned the chance down - apparently, they move in mysterious ways their blunders to perform.

Having decided that they were going to play "Test cricket", India inexplicably opted to bat as though they were batting on the first morning, rather than the fifth. Mohammad Azharuddin got to his 5000 mark in his 83rd Test (16 fifties, 17 centuries, an average of 44.3). But even if he plays another 83 Tests, I'll never figure out the man - in earlier games, when the fortunes of the game hung in the balance, he has come out swinging from the word go, and departed to shots of shocking carelessness. Today, when it seemed an ideal opportunity for him, on this easy paced pitch, to play a few shots in a pressure-free situation and get into the mood for the ODIs, he opted to show everyone just how good his defensive technique is, over an innings of 31 runs off 72 deliveries.

Taking their cue from Azharuddin, Nayan Mongia batted out a good 157 deliveries for his 34, and even Kumble played a disciplined knock of 47 deliveries to get 15. Why the caution? Just what were they trying to accomplish? Batting practise, possibly? But then again, this sort of batting practise is not what they want for ODIs, is it?

If the Indian mindset was inexplicable, so too was that of West Indies skipper Courtney Walsh. Beginning the day with a ball that was already 90 overs old - that is, ten overs past the stage where a new ball could have been taken - Walsh continued with it for another 32 overs. And it wasn't as if he was using spin, albeit the part-time spin of Chanderpaul and Hooper. No, it was the likes of Rose and Bishop, and later Ambrose and Walsh himself, who came steaming in with that soft, lifeless old ball, a ball made even more lifeless by rolling around on the damp outfield. Till, finally, better sense prevailed, the new ball was taken, and the Windies quicks ran through the Indian innings shortly before tea.

India were all out for 355, and the Windies bowling figures provided one additional touch of irony. Six bowlers were used in all. Of them, five got wickets - Hooper and Rose doing the honours with three each, while even Shivnairaine Chanderpaul managed to snaffle an aggressive-minded Sunil Joshi. So guess who was left out? Curtley Ambrose, is who - the tall Antiguan, looking for just five more wickets to break into the three-hundred club, has now gone wicketless for the last two Tests.

In the event, it was the West Indies who got their thinking right. Opening with Shivnaraine Chanderpaul (regular opener Sherwyn Campbell being indisposed) and Stuart Williams, they went for the quick runs from the get-go.

Providing the home crowd entertainment may have been one reason - and the crowd loved every minute of the fireworks, first from Williams who stroked a brisk 44 off 46 deliveries with five fours and a six, and later from Lara. Chanderpaul, meanwhile, played a measured innings of 58 off 100 deliveries, punctuating his studied defence with seven boundaries, some straight out of the top drawer.

But even as they entertained the crowd, the Windies top order got some useful practise of the right kind - the one day kind, that is. Thus far, the batsmen of both sides through this Test series have been more in defensive frame of mind. It is now time for them to change mental gears, to free the swing of the arms and hit through the line - and by getting some valuable hitting practise out there, the Windies top order certainly started their preparations better than the Indians.

Walsh was obviously determined to let all his main batsmen have a go. Carl Hooper, ever the enigma, was the only one who failed to oblige, playing with trademark languor for 16 deliveries for his one run, before getting himself stranded in no man's land while Rahul Dravid, keeping in place of Nayan Mongia who took a Franklyn Rose inswinging yorker on his toe while batting, gathered the throw and took off the bails. And that dismissal prompted Walsh to call the innings off, with the West Indies having smashed 145 runs off 30 overs for the loss of three wickets.

All told, this Test has been a waste of everyone's time. There was, perhaps, an opportunity to salvage something out of the mess the rain had made, on this last day. The Indians failed to do so, the West Indies succeeded. And the after-effects of this could still be felt when the two teams meet, starting this Saturday, in a series of four one dayers.

A footnote, to leave you with: former Test star Joe Solomon, adjudicating the Man of the Match award, gave it jointly to Rahul Dravid and Shivnaraine Chanderpaul. Could it be coincidence that both are young, both have been the most consistent batsmen for either side in this series, and both are expected to form the pivots of their respective batting sides for a very long time to come?

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