We messed up again: Yours unfaithfully, Indian cricketers

TREVOR CHESTERFIELD

IT was not so much a few days in the Bob Woolmer think-tank school of coaching which turned Kenya’s Summer Spice Series around as a matter of self belief and stricter disciplined playing skills. The result was India’s humiliation and the need to rethink their strategy with Friday’s game against South Africa.

Perhaps the shock defeat by 70 runs along with Kenya collecting a bonus point and India being dismissed for 176, their lowest score at limited overs international level against the East Africans, might shake up the Asian team’s management. Frankly, though it was a shoddy batting performance by India who deserved to lose and it was their second defeat to the Kenyans.

They went into the game far too confident, failed to apply the pressure needed and the result was Kenya scoring 246 for six in their 50 overs and their own feeble batting response was remarkable in that they were outclassed by the better side. Match of the match, the medium-fast bowler Joseph Angara, a 29-year-old whose return of 3/30 in 10 overs did much to add bite to the Kenya bowling.

Being his first match and to earn the man of the match cheque might place a query against the Kenya selection policy so far in this series and the decisions of the normal skipper, Maurice Odumbe, banned for a couple of games for criticising umpire Dave Orchard for chastising one of his players, to throw the ball to just about anyone who can bowl to attempt to prise out a batsman. Odumbe would no doubt suggest that the policy might work.

Angara, under Steve Tikolo’s captaincy, gave the impression that the motivation he needed was an early wicket so imaging the glee when he force Sachin Tendulkar to edge a ball into his stumps for three.

The remainder of the Indian innings feel into place after that: too many batsmen threw their wickets away. The look on Saurav Ganguly’s face when he lost his wicket to Thomas Odoyo’s first delivery was a picture of disbelief. Even wearing Virender Sehwag’s shirt did not help the Indian captain carry the fight to the Kenyans who bowled and fielding with remarkable discipline. It was quite scary when measured against the pathetic display in Bloemfontein.

The same could be said for the brilliance of the catch by Collin Otieno off Angara’s bowling to get rid of Reetinder Sodhi.

It was one which Jonty Rhodes would have been pleased to pouch. Sodhi stood his ground for a good 15 to 20 seconds. Yet it was the sort of win which was so reminiscent of Kenya’s win over the West Indies in the 1996 World Cup, a victory which shattered the West Indies and their then captain Richie Richardson.

Hopefully the victory is going to place a gob-stopper in Pat Symcox’s vitriolic mouth at a time when he was advocating that the United Cricket Board carry out the hair-brained scheme of abandoning Kenya’s remaining games in the Summer Spice Series and play the final between South Africa and India over three legs. Apart from Kenya and Zimbabwe, Symcox has not been into Africa to look at the International Cricket Council’s work in expanding the game.

Yet this Indian defeat smacks of their own indecision as they lost the plot on Monday when it was learned that the batting and bowling would be seriously weakened. Had they thought deep enough they would have seen the sense of playing perhaps Ajit Agarkar and Sehwag or Shiv Sunder Das to give the batting extra depth.

It has been quite a turn around for the Indians and the East Africans from chumps to champs and the pressure on India to come back from the depths of a top-and mid-innings decline which was so unexpected that Ganguly’s look of astonishment at his dismissal encapsulated the batting disaster which began with Tendulkar’s early departure. At 103/7, however, there was no way back and so it proved as the lowest score of 196 against Kenya in Gwalior passed into history and replaced by the Port Elizabeth debacle.

(Courtesy: TheWicket.com)