No end to Muralitharan’s India nightmare

November 21, 2009 at 10:22 am · By staff

The veteran off-spinner has only 34 wickets in India at an average of 42.58.

How many is enough? Many that is in first innings runs lead on the board. It is a question that needs to be asked and whether in all seriousness if Sri Lanka were decidedly too over-confident that with someone as Muttiah Muralitharan in their ranks, the 333 runs first innings lead would place pressure on India.

For a start, the reputation of the Motera pitch since its first Test that involved the West Indies in 1983 that Clive Lloyd’s team won with ease shows there have been more draws than success for either India or the visiting side. On their last tour four years ago, an alleged injury hit Sri Lanka were well beaten with the spin of Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble.

Injury-hit as the vice-captain Chaminda Vaas had been ruled out with a mysterious injury or illness on the morning of the game after some words were tossed around at the nets adjacent to the Sardar Patel venue the previous day. It is also a game where there was criticism because of the way Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble bowled to take 17 wickets between them and Muralitharan ended with six for 218. It is perhaps asking a bit much to expect Murali to improve in these figures this time around.

It is why when reviewing Day Four, and the way he had batted, the Gautam Gambhir Test saviour image was as strong as any you might find in the Indian camp. But remarks around the Colombo traps of how Murali’s doosra an other fancy tricks would give Sri Lanka their first Test win in India was not smart thinking. It ignored the off-spinner’s success rate this year. His final match analysis of 3/221 was far worse than the 2005 effort and now gives him an Indian career return of 34 wickets at 42.58.

It says a lot that he has been unable to make an impression on India’s formidable batting as have the seamers in this Test. It questions yet again whether the old warrior’s efforts in this tour of India going to detract from his career performances of 22.41. In fact, the spinners this time were as ineffective as aiming a water pistol at a cavalry charge. Useless. And if Sri Lanka seriously thought they had the bowling to undo India a second time, they needed to think again.

There was some brilliant batting and some average batting; a couple of brilliant centuries and dare it be said, even, Sachin Tendulkar would admit that this 43rd Test century is not one he would place along side others. It was solid workman like effort, as with Gambhir, more artisan in approach than style and the chic flare you sometimes get with his batting. But there are reasons for this approach of course. There was a Test and a series to save.

If anything, Gambhir’s dismissal can be classified as a momentary lapse in concentration. A foolish heave at a Rangana Herath delivery that Dammika Prasad collected with simple ease at a time when he may have thought it would clear the field. Up to that point, he had batted with sense and used his hands and feet to frustrate the Sri Lanka spin duo. In fact, Herath looked less the bowler he did against Pakistan when he was recalled from England earlier this year to take over from the injured Murali before the start of the Galle Test.

Tendulkar’s batting made up for the first innings error where he left too much of a gap for Chanaka Welegedara to slide the ball through and take him out. To think it would happen again is a matter of living on some mysterious dream cloud. After the loss of Rahul Dravid to a seriously marginal lbw decision, which Sri Lanka media were championing in as a defining moment – had it been one of their own on the end of that Daryl Harper decision the howls of derision would have sounded like someone suffering serious toothache – it needed a calm approach to show Sri Lanka that India were not about to capitulate again.

There was some pretty batting and some workmanlike efforts throughout the day. Nothing ordinary mind you. That was in the bowling.

One impressive stroke by Tendulkar where he worked the ball for a single to take him to 99 was typical example that he knew where the gaps in the field were and this explains why he is the batsman he is. A matter if confidence and self-belief as well as telling the bowler, Herath in this case, that bowling the wide outside the off-stump is the sort of negativity which summed up the Sri Lankan approach post-lunch in Day Five.

Now the series moves to the tardy city of Kanpur in the banks of the Ganges. A city where pollution levels are high and the streets are generally scruffy. When India last played a Test there, it was against South Africa and on a pitch that seemed to have been prepared on some nearby patch of sand.

India, humiliated in an innings defeat at Motera a few days before were given the conditions to suit their spinners to level the series. South Africa and the match referee called foul, India were told to produce a report for the International Cricket Council of why the Green Park venue pitch was so bad, but as usual, the BCCI have to find the report that was critical of the conditions. It is said that such was the embarrassment of the report, which accused the curator of deliberately creating conditions to favour the spinners the written report was shredded before it reached Mumbai.

Now, had Sri Lanka won in Motera, the conditions at Green Park would have been interesting. But the draw would suggest that another placid surface would be prepared. But don’t hold your breath.

Score:cricket next

Any content appearing in this site may be Gossip. Indianshangout.com does not comply with the same.