da bet7k： The Indians may not be consistent, but the Zimbabweans sure arepredictable
Anand Vasu26-Nov-2000The Indians may not be consistent, but the Zimbabweans sure arepredictable. When it comes to bowling on Indian wickets, Heath Streakand his motley crew have no idea how to approach the task. Theirspeedster Henry Olonga is a case in point. After roaring in for a fewovers attempting to send down the fastest delivery in the history ofthe game, he settles down to being more sedate, if not more sensible.When it comes to spinners Brian Murphy, Grant Flower and Dirk Viljoen,the less said the better. Uniformly, the Zimbabwean bowlers, barringthe captain himself, bowled on every spot in the pitch. Short, full,wide of off stump, down leg side… Everything was tried but thesimple short of a length outside the off stump delivery. The result,India amassed 609 before declaring with four wickets still in hand.Sachin Tendulkar made a masterly 201 not out and Rahul Dravid helpedhimself to 162. The two put on 249 runs together. For the first timesince Mark Taylor’s Australians conceded 633/5 declared to India inCalcutta in early 1998, India crossed the six hundred run mark. Thatwas two and a half years ago. One would certainly have to go back muchlonger to find an instance where India made six hundred runs abroad.The day began positively for India. After a few quick singles Dravidstruck a boundary to reach ninety-nine. On reaching that score, heslowed down, ever so briefly. Carefully playing out almost two overs,Dravid finally brought up his century. Having done so, it was back tobusiness as usual. Dravid quickly got busy cracking the bowlers away.He began by welcoming Grant Flower to the wicket by hitting him out ofthe ground over long on. Playing several such shots against the leftarm spinners, Dravid was unafraid to take the aerial route. Meanwhile,Tendulkar threatened to catch up with his counterpart. Reaching hiscentury off 155 balls, Tendulkar opened his shoulders and began totake a serious liking to the Zimbabwe bowlers. The pair went in to thepavilion to enjoy a sumptuous lunch, till then untroubled andunconquered.While the crowd eagerly awaited a surfeit of runs and no wickets lostin the session between lunch and tea, they were in for adisappointment. Instead, the Indians added just 83 runs for the lossof two wickets.After reaching 162 without stuttering, Dravid inexplicably went aftera bouncer that was well down the leg side from Streak and gloved theball through to the wicketkeeper. The nature of the pitch and thebowling attack made it look like Dravid had missed out on a goodopportunity. However, one must remember that he spent more than sixand a half hours at the wicket and struck twenty fours.Coming in to bat with 473 runs already on the board must be quiteawkward. Sourav Ganguly certainly found it so. In a two paced inningswhere he was either blocking the ball or going for huge hits, Gangulymanaged 30 before miscuing one such big hit, only to be caught at midoff.Ajit Agarkar (12), as he has done many times in the past, promisedmuch and delivered little. Fortunately Sunil Joshi came in and smackedthe ball around for a sprightly 27 in the company of Tendulkar. Thisbrought stumper Dahiya out to the middle. He was given just fourminutes at the crease by Tendulkar. Reaching the second double centuryof his Test career in 392 minutes, Tendulkar exulted. In a repeat ofthe last Test, India declared their innings closed as soon as abatsman reached his double hundred. In Delhi it was Dravid and today,Tendulkar. The Mumbai batting star’s 201 included 27 hits to thefence, but not once did he attempt to hit the ball all the way overthe ropes. At a massive 609/6 India declared their innings closed.In response, Zimbabwe sent Guy Whittall to open the innings in placeof Grant Flower who bagged a pair in the Delhi Test. In the eighteenovers that were bowled, Zimbabwe managed to reach 59/1. The wicketthat fell was of Gavin Rennie, being needlessly run out. Whittall (34not out) and Stuart Carlisle (4 not out) saw Zimbabwe through tostumps without further damage.