The psychological advantage the Indians had over the South Africanswas annulled ruthlessly by the Springboks in the lung opener of theCoca-Cola Championship at Sharjah

Woorkheri Raman23-Mar-2000The psychological advantage the Indians had over the South Africanswas annulled ruthlessly by the Springboks in the lung opener of theCoca-Cola Championship at Sharjah. The only positive thing for theIndians was Ganguly winning the toss. After that it was a sort of anightmare with wickets falling like nine pins on a placid pitch. TheSouth Africans never let go of the initiative after breaking throughearly in the innings.Pollock beat Tendulkar with an inswinger to castle the little masterand not many would have thought that that was beginning of the end forthe Indians. Ganguly started off well before Kallis accounted for himand with Dravid perishing early, the Indians were straight awaylooking down the barrel. The idea of once again promoting Joshi isdebatable but he did what he was sent out for by smashing a few quickruns. The Indian middle order is strong, yet at the same time can bebrittle at times.The middle collapse started with the dismissal of the most experiencedcampaigner Azharuddin, who played a loose shot. Elworthy and Ntini,sensing that there was a good chance of running through the Indianline-up, bowled with magnificent discipline. Ntini stuck to a linejust outside the off stump while Elworthy bowled straight to pick uphis wickets. Elworthy trapped Robin Singh and shortly after that Karimchopped one on to his stumps. Jadeja was left to bat with the lowerorder batsman and he tried his best to achieve some respectability tothe Indian total.He looked well and truly in control throughout his innings and finallyit was Srinath who spent some time with him at the crease. The lastwicket partnership took the Indians past the 150 mark and in the endthe Indians were a million runs short to make a match out ofit. Cronje would have hardly expected the Indians to crumble as theydid and quite naturally he would not complain about it either. Hisbowlers did a fantastic job under trying conditions and the reputedIndian batsmen have only themselves to blame.Gibbs and Kirsten might fancy their chances against the Indian attackat their worst since they have been feasting themselves in the lastfew weeks. Srinath once again gives the impression that he is notenjoying the one-dayers as much as he should with the end result beingthat his reputation is gradually being dented. Agarkar bowled wellwithin himself and none of the bowlers were able to get a wicketagainst their names but that would have hardly mattered. At one stagethe only interest left was to see which of the openers would galloptowards the century mark. Eventually neither of them got anywhereclose to it and the Indians left their supporters in Sharjah to gohome after witnessing a lacklustre performance.The Indians take on their arch rivals Pakistan in their next encounterand it will be a high-powered needle game. Needless to say, Gangulyand his boys have to win this game to feel reasonably good about theirchances in the tournament. It will not be impossible to beat thePakistanis as their morale is also at low ebb, but the Indians have toraise their game by at least a few notches.