'Superglue' fielding does it for Lanka

Prem Panicker

The temptation, after a game like this, is to give the credit for Sri Lanka's effortless win to its batsmen - the explosive Sanath Jayasuriya, the classy and consistent Marvan Atapattu and the ice-cool skipper Arjuna Ranatunga who, in this tournament, has done what his deputy Aravinda D'Silva did for them in the World Cup.

But to my mind, the Lankans won this in the field - with perhaps the most outstanding display of ground fielding and catching I've seen in contemporary cricket. The Lankans in the field reminded you of nothing so much as a boa constrictor, winding coils around its victim and then steadily tightening, choking the victim to death.

Boas squeeze. They don't bite. The Lankans did - six times, with six of the most breathtaking catches you want to see. And when a side performs the way the Lankans did in the field - the captain placing his fielders just so, the bowling changes rung in with imagination and precision, the bowlers doing precisely what is expected of them, and the fielders killing themselves to stop everything that comes their way, it would have been a travesty had the result gone any other way.

India, winning the toss, made some rather interesting changes. Navjot Singh Sidhu was pushed up to the top of the order, Sachin Tendulkar bringing himself down to four presumably to take advantage of the middle overs, when Sri Lanka bowls its non-regular bowlers.

Again, Abey Kuruvilla, who after a lovely debut series in the West Indies, had a very mediocre outing this far in the Asia Cup where he failed to show penetration even on the bowler-friendly SSC ground, was rested and Nilesh Kulkarni, the left arm spinner from Mumbai, got a look in.

An indication of how the game could go came right at the beginning, as both Sidhu and Ganguly found that despite their best intentions, the fielders got in the way of every stroke they played. For Sidhu, matters were made considerably worse by the fact that his layoff appeared to have made his footwork rusty - there was, most times, no sign of positive movement either onto the front or the back foot, and the Lankan quicks kept him pinned down with some very tidy bowling.

Frustration finally did for him as he hit at a ball without moving his feet at all. The ball went towards mid off and Muralitharan, fielding deeper, raced in, slid forward, then dived onto his face to pull off a beauty.

Rahul Dravid looked in great touch right at the start, but one over from Vaas did for him. Ball one was flicked off the pads, and superbly stopped by Mahanama. Ball two, action replay of ball one. Ball three, Dravid figures on playing the stroke squarer, to the left of the fielder - and Mahanama, with a split second to do the deed, flings himself full stretch to his left and while still airborne, takes the catch left-handed, a couple of inches off the ground. You don't see better catches than that at any level of the game.

Saurav Ganguly meanwhile was stroking the ball fluently - though there is a quantum difference between hitting it around against Bangladesh, and against bowling and fielding of this class. He was, however, still going along smoothly when he stepped back to play a square drive and stood in disbelief as senior citizen Aravinda D'Silva, skittish as a lamb in springtime, went diving to his right to pluck the catch at coverpoint.

That brought Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin to the crease - and both looked calm, unhurried, and in good touch. More importantly, they got their basics right, keeping the singles coming with deft placements and running between wickets. Going into the final phase of the innings with both Azhar and Sachin past their 50s and Jadeja and Robin Singh to follow, a score in excess of 250, 260 looked a distinct bet. And then Sachin Tendulkar went after Muralitharan, hitting him high, wide and very handsome to midwicket. Ruwan Kalpage ran a good 15 meters to his right from wide mid off, slid along on one knee for a bit, realised he still wasn't getting there and flung himself forward to grab the ball as it landed - a catch that had Tendulkar shaking his head in disbelief as he walked back.

But for me, the moment to match Mahanama's magic was when Azharuddin, who has had a dream comeback in this tournament, flat-batted a ball over midwicket. The ball was looking to cross the boundary line about three feet off the ground and flat, when Muralitharan, racing round from wide mid off, took off like Superman, grabbed the ball with both hands at full stretch, rather like an outfielder in baseball grasping a line drive, landed, did a complex tango to ensure that his feet did not cross the ropes... I mean, how do you describe such catches?

Given a display like that, I thought it was pretty creditable of India to have even got to 239 in their fifty overs - the Lankans, in the field and with their catching, were to my mind worth a good 40, 50 runs.

India's decision to go in without Kuruvilla made sense, given that a medium pacer bowling off a short run and keeping the ball dead straight would have looked, to the hit-happy Lankan batsmen, like Santa Claus paying an early visit. However, in the event, such niceties as who bowled what line and where the fielders were placed were nullified by an innings of stunningly explosive power by Sanath Jayasuriya. He hit, and kept on hitting, irrespective - and by the time he was out, he had, yet again, given the Lankans such a flier of a start that the rest of the side would have had to bat really badly to lose this one.

Which is not to forget Marvan Atapattu. Every successive outing in this tournament has revealed a fresh facet of this player. We've seen the rock solid concentration in the earlier game against India, when both Jayasuriya and Aravinda went early. We've seen his classy elegance in the games against Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both the concentration and the elegance were on view here as well - with the addition of an ability to make the scoreboard gasp for breath trying to keep pace. And he does it without ever looking hurried, or having to resort to some of those sledgehammer blows that Jayasuriya employs - his strokeplay is straight out of the classical guidebook.

Aravinda had another bad day at the office, playing too early to a gentle inswinger from Ganguly to give the bowler a simple return catch. But Ranatunga, the new man in, poured cold water on India's dreams with yet another innings of class, grace and, yes, power. In fact, for me, the defining moment of Ranatunga's batting came in Nilesh Kulkarni's fifth over. The left arm spinner, debuting at this level, had already bowled 4-0-5-1, that one wicket the prize of Jayasuriya who he beat with both flight and turn to induce an easy catch to Navjot Sidhu at mid off. Kulkarni is a very tall lad and bowls with a high arm action, which means the ball is coming down at you from a height and making things rather tough for the batsmen.

Ranatunga looked rather gingery against him in the fourth over, and for the first two balls of the fifth. And then he stepped up a gear, to dance down and cart him effortlessly over midon for a huge six, and followed it up with an exquisite coverdrive for four - and the new boy had been firmly put in his place by the battle-scarred veteran.

With Atapattu putting up another rock-solid display and Ranatunga changing gears at will, Lanka's win was foregone. And given its performance in the field, merely justice at work. They played with heart, whether batting, bowling or fielding - and walked out deserving winners.

For India, the worries continue. If Kulkarni and Ganguly bowled well despite the early blitz, then Kumble slid a few steps lower in terms of form, bowling wides, no balls, and directionless deliveries in such profusion that, as he increasingly lost his cool, one couldn't help but feel sorry for his plight. The Indian leggie needs to go back to the drawing board - but when? His position as team vice captain ensures that he is not going to get a break to sit back, think about his bowling, and have a spell in the nets that will give him time to work on the variations he so badly lacks today. And with Srinath unfit and Kumble woefully lacking in form and confidence, India's bowling looks increasingly incapable of going up against any international outfit these days with any hope of success.

Meanwhile, applause please for the Lankans. India played cricket out there - those guys played something else.

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