It was yet another humdinger of a match at the Wankhede Stadium inMumbai, and England again came out on top, this time by five runs

Erapalli Prasanna05-Feb-2002It was yet another humdinger of a match at the Wankhede Stadium inMumbai, and England again came out on top, this time by five runs.Nasser Hussain and his men have almost pulled off the impossible,winning back-to-back one-day internationals on Indian soil. I havealways believed that the run of the ball on the day decides the winnerin a limited-overs match, and that was proved amply on Sunday.Yet I am rather intrigued by the manner in which India lost the lasttwo one-day internationals to throw away a healthy 3-1 lead in theseries. The margin of loss clearly suggests that our batting chokesunder pressure, and in both of the last two matches, India was justone stroke away from victory.
© CricInfoEngland possibly did all the right things on the day, includingwinning the toss and electing to bat first. If not for a brilliantspell of off-spin bowling by Harbhajan Singh, they might even haveamassed a score well in excess of 300. As I had mentioned at the startof the tour, Marcus Trescothick was the key batsman, and he lived upto those expectations by giving England yet another brisk start at thetop of the order.The Indian fielders are still not up to the task of stopping thosesharp singles from being stolen. On the contrary, the English fieldingwas of the very highest order. The determination, effort andpreparation was there to be seen. Hussain was simply superb in thecovers, and it always helps when you have a captain who leads from thefront on the field, setting very high standards for others to emulate.
© AFPEngland were 218/9 at one stage, but they then rallied superbly tomake it to 255 all out. Andrew Flintoff and Darren Gough appliedthemselves very well, and those 38 runs made all the difference in theend. Even after that, there was a point at which India were cruisingto a win and Sourav Ganguly was running into good form. It was hisdismissal that triggered the collapse yet again.The Indian middle order still looks too weak. There seems to be a lackof self-confidence that is hurting the team’s fortunes a great deal.The kind of shots that the batsmen are currently attempting – pullinga bowler of Flintoff’s pace, which is definitely not their strength -are puzzling, to say the least.What is required now for India to do well is some consistency andcommon-sense cricket. I wonder what the selectors are planning for thefuture. With a packed international schedule and the World Cup comingup in 2003, there is a lot of work to be done. Ideally, Ganguly shoulddrop further down the order to number five to lend some experience tothe middle order. I find no reason why the current opening partnershipof Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag should be disturbed for now.In addition, the team really requires a player in the middle order whocan accumulate runs by improvising and taking quick singles. RahulDravid does not fit into that role, nor does VVS Laxman, who seems tobe going through a crisis of sorts in trying to harness his owntalent. I would even consider the ageing war-horse, Robin Singh, to betried during the one-dayers against Zimbabwe, a move that would allowthe younger players to learn about successfully chasing a moderatetarget in a tight situation.It is also intriguing why no other fast bowler was tried out duringthe series. Zaheer Khan should have been given a go in at least one ofthe games. The pitch at the Wankhede stadium was the most suited forthe fast bowlers, and it might have been worthwhile to have playedZaheer in the final game. I thought that Ajay Ratra did very wellbehind the stumps; if he can score a few more runs consistently, itwould fill a major void in the lower-order batting.As I have been writing in my previous columns, I have only deepadmiration for Hussain’s captaincy. Over a period of just a fewmonths, we have seen how he helped transform a bunch of inexperiencedplayers into a winning unit. It is this team spirit and this will towin under trying conditions that helped significantly in the process.Even before the series began, I had suggested that Trescothick andFlintoff would be the two key players for the English side. Flintoff’sbowling has been of top-class quality on this tour, and it was hisbatting that was a huge disappointment for the most part of the tour.In Delhi and Mumbai, though, Flintoff played two responsible knocks ofhigh value. To me, Flintoff was the Man of the Match at Mumbai, and myMan of the Series was Trescothick.As I have maintained through the series, these two sides are wellmatched. The final outcome of 3-3 was possibly the best result to anengrossing ODI series. It is to their credit that this English sidehas learnt a lot from this tour. Now they have a world class bowlingwith the likes of Caddick, Gough, Flintoff, Hoggard and Giles, whocould take those 20 wickets to win Test matches in their upcoming tourof New Zealand. Nasser Hussain, take a bow!