Phantom menace in Karachi

karachi, July 6: On the face of it Ajantha Mendis’s figures of 8-1-16-6 might suggest that Sri Lanka’s new spin-find single-handed annihilated the Indians in the Asia Cup final. But a bit of scrutiny reveals a helping hand by the Indian batsmen.

Mendis’s variations, on the surprisingly responsive National Stadium track, were tough to read but the Indian batsmen didn’t quite come across as diligent students of the game.

With the score reading 76/1 at the end of the ninth over and opener Virender Sehwag in top form, the Sri Lankan score of 273 didn’t seem distant. But the advent of Mendis in the 10th over triggered the Indian collapse.

Sehwag charged out to Mendis and the wily bowler pitched the ball short and spun it away from the batsman. Sehwag, in tremendous form till then, was stumped. Yuvraj Singh, the next batsman in, simply failed to get in line as Mendis got through his defence. The aura surrounding the mystery spinner had spooked Yuvraj. The television replays showed Mendis had flicked the ball with his fingers and Yuvraj, expecting a turn, was beaten by the straighter one that accelerated after pitching.

Suresh Raina, the other batsman who has also been enjoying good form, gave Mendis his third wicket. Raina’s poor shot selection was responsible for him losing his stumps. Lastly, Rohit Sharma, not among the ones who’ve lit up this tournament, repeated the mistake. Trying to work it to the on-side, Sharma too ended committing hara-kiri off a delivery that kept low and turned just little to hit the batsman’s back leg.

By the time Sharma was gone, India were 97/5. Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the lone flag-bearer watching in despair from the other end, was fighting a lost cause. In fact only Raina and Robin Uthappa, with scores of 16 and 20 managed to get into double figures apart from Sehwag and Dhoni.

In hindsight it is easy to guess why Sri Lanka opted to keep Mendis under wraps and didn’t play him in the last league game against India. The ace up Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene’s sleeve proved to be the trump card.

Earlier in the day, India committed their first big mistake of the day by resting Piyush Chawla. Not just the specialist left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, but even part-time slow bowlers like Virender Sehwag and Sharma were quite effective in the final game of the tournament that many big names in the Indian pace bowling will like to forget.

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