The Lords of Lord's


Kaif celebrates!

By Anil - 14 July, '02
July 14 2002

India has won a historic ODI final in the tri-series in England against England at Lord's. The victory was as amazing as it was exhilarating, earned by a couple of 20 year olds who had helped win the U-19 World Cup only a couple years back.

Victory lap

As Sourav Ganguly and his men ran their victory lap around the Lord's cricket ground, carrying an Indian flag thrown to them by one of their thousands of ecstatic supporters, a thought occurs to their fans. The best win in the history of ODI cricket, coming back from an impossible position, had just been achieved by the same team that had achieved the greatest win in the history of Test cricket, coming back from an impossible position, just over a year back. The Indians had done their countrymen proud and showed all over again how to win when winning is but a distant dream. Is it surprising then that Indian fans seem to expect a miracle every time their team walks out?

And, as the partnership of Mohammed Kaif and Zaheer Khan hit the winning runs for their team with 3 balls to spare and then erupted with joy, another thought passed through one's mind: India had also taught a different, and more valuable, lesson to the world - here's how you win in a diverse world: by being oblivious to religion, culture, and background.

Three great performances

It took 3 great performances to take India to victory. One, the initial assault by skipper Ganguly who led from the front to send out two messages simultaneously with his whirlwind 60 at the top of the order to race ahead of England's run rate: one to tell the English that he intended to win this, and the other telling his teammates to believe. Two, Yuvraj shaking off the dismissal of the world's best batsman and accepting the challenge to score 326 with the last recognized batsman at the other end, less than half that score on the board, and 5 of India's best already back in the pavilion. Three, Kaif's ice-cold, nerveless performance, refusing to give in regardless of circumstances, his determination to win the game for India, with an impossible ask and tailenders at the other end.

All 3 performances shone like 3 individual beacons in the dark of the seeming hopelessness of chasing the biggest total ever, to make the highest score ever made in Lord's and, in fact, in the history of ODI's in England. The dark gave way to blinding sunshine, the brilliance of men who refused to give in. For Yuvraj and Kaif were too young to know that their target was impossible. They were not laboring under the weight of countless defeats abroad. Their only memories were of that time they had won the under-19 World Cup for their country - just a couple of years back.

Captain Courageous revels in the victory

Ganguly's emotions ran high after they finally won it. This is the man who had done everything to build his team of winners: fought not only a vicious opposition aided ably by their media - but also his own country's media, his selectors, his sniping ex-players. To the Indian fans, who disliked those people just as much as Ganguly, his team's victory came as sweet vindication. In its wake, the win washed away unpleasant momories of Hansie Cronje and his matchfixers, even the outrageous Mike Deness and his much-despised ICC supporters.

Ganguly celebrated from the balcony by taking his shirt off and swinging it around, then rushed on to the field. He jumped on Mohammed Kaif and Yuvraj Singh in a display of unabashed emotion, surrounded by his teammates. The decibel levels from a hugely supportive crowd in Lord's grew dangerously high as Sourav later thanked them for turning out and supporting India. Bhajji's raucous yelling and bhangra dance on field had them dancing in the stands. Kaif accepted his Man of the Match award with a modest speech in which he explained that his partnership with Yuvraj grew from an acquaintance in junior cricket going 6 years back.

Other high points of the Indian innings apart from the 3 outstanding efforts were Sehwag, who shattered the confidence of Ronnie Irani in his very first over, hitting 4 fours with the remaining two balls saved a similar fate by great saves. Sehwag struggled early but came into his own, to be dismissed just when he was looking invincible. Sachin never really settled down - one cannot expect the world's best batsman to be at his best on each occasion, but suffice it to say that he had played a big role in bringing India to the final.

Selection and other blunders

Something had gone very wrong in the team selection: using both spinners and leaving out the high class pace bowling of Ajit Agarkar was a blunder. The huge partnership between Trecothick and Hussain proved that India's simplistic assessment of England's weakness against spin had gone awry, and the usual early breakthrough from Agarkar was greatly missed specially given the early life in the pitch. Trecothick hit a lovely knock even though he was dropped not once but thrice, and the offenders were the best of the Indian fielders: Yuvraj and Kaif. There were numerous air balls and Indian fielders seem to have caved in, not getting to the ball quickly enough.

Hussain played a poor, scratchy innings. Nonetheless he had a boastful, immature response when he reached his 3-figure mark: pointing to the number 3 on the back of his shirt and wearing an angry expression. The effort was none too convincing and did little to convince his detractors. Hussain had the same expression later in the Indian innings when umpire Bucknor exchanged the soft and muddy ball for one more fit to play with: he followed the umpire around on multiple occasions, especially when the Yuvraj-Kaif partnership prospered, telling the umpire it was his fault that the game was being taken away from England. He was stonily ignored and it would not surprise me if he would cop severe penalties for his strongly expressed dissent. In fact it would surprise me if he didn't.

Other observations

Sherry Sidhu livened up proceedings for the first time in what has increasingly proven to be a near comatose commentators box. Paul Allott, David Gower, and Ian Botham have droned lifelessly so far, with David Lloyd and Sunil Gavskar adding a touch of color every so often. But Sidhu arrived with a bang. "If it ain't broke, break it", he stormed, about the decision to leave out Agarkar and bring in 2 full-time spinners. He added somewhat mystifyingly that "misfortune arrives on horseback and leaves on foot", in response to Gower's remark towards the latter stages of England's innings that India looked to be in trouble now. Finally, at watching a shot of Agarkar looking on from the player's balcony, he observed that Agarkar would have loved to be on center stage but was doing the next best thing: laying eggs. Sidhu was in fine nick and said other things of note too numerous to list here. Let's just hope that his arrival means that he is in the commentary team for the Tests. It was very clear that the England commentators were steering clear of any extended arguments with him, no doubt having witnessed some of his debates with Geoff Boycott on air. Incidentally, while Gower and Botham were predicting 350+ for England, Sidhu's 325 prediction was right on target.

Soapbox

It is not in the Indian team's nature to complain about bad umpiring, especially after they have won. However it is important to point these out, if only to show how they could so easily have deprived India of a magnificent and well deserved win.

David Shepherd, the England umpire, negated two appeals from Kumble which had both Hussain and Flintoff plumb in front of the wicket. The "missile" technology from Sky TV showed both of them hitting the stumps, and both appeals were confident from Kumble and the Indians. But Shepherd unconscionably shrugged both of them off. Correct decisions would have reduced the eventual England score considerably.

Dinesh Mongia, one of India's class young top order batsmen, missed a delivery from Irani, Stewart collected, and both Irani and Stewart went up in intense appeal. Shepherd initially did not react, but in the face of repeated appealing from the England players, gave an astonished Mongia out. Shepherd's delayed reaction showed his trust of his countrymen's appeal, believing that they could not appeal so vociferously unless Mongia was actually out. However the replay showed Mongia missing the ball. But when Kumble had appealed equally confidently, Shepherd brushed him off - even though in that case, the batsmen were actually out as the replay showed. This displayed Shepherd's instinctive distrust of the Indian players and his trust of the English. Such biases have no places in the modern game.

During the most crucial ending moments of the game, when it could have gone either way, the usually conservative neutral umpire Bucknor messed up. A ball which missed Kumble's bat by a country mile resulted in Bucknor giving him caught out behind in response to Stewart's dishonestly loud appeal. Perhaps both umpires should have looked at the several confident stumping appeals by Stewart turned down by the 3rd umpire when the camera showed batsmen's feet well grounded several inches behind the crease. Stewart's dishonesty in appealing should be noted by the umpires, and strongly discouraged.

Finally in the last couple of overs when every run counted, and at a time the umpires should be careful in their observation of wide deliveries, a huge wide on the off side which Kaif stretched out to reach but couldn't, was overlooked by umpire Shepherd to a chorus of boos from the packed crowd. And in the final over with 2 runs to get and a tailender at the crease, a ball well outside leg stump from Flintoff was not given wide by Bucknor, even though an outraged Zaheer pointed it out to Bucknor and Ganguly was fuming in the balcony.

In all there were 6 bad decisions by the umpires, and each of them went against the Indians. 4 of these were by a clearly biased home umpire. It is important for Indian media to make just as much of an issue of these as the English do of every marginal decision that goes against them abroad - because the scales should not tip in anybody's favor, and because nice guys will finish last if they don't speak up. Nice guys lose when decisions go unfairly against them, especially in games that go down to the wire. India would have won much more comfortably if there was unbiased umpiring here.

In closing

What a fantastic win for India. They are now justifiably considered one of the favorites for the World Cup. With easily the strongest batting lineup in the world, and a varied and powerful bowling attack, along with athletic new fielding skills, they will be regarded as the team to beat in the World Cup next year. Keep winning, team India!

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