da luck： Zimbabwe had only one chance to qualify for the LGCUP final on Sunday
da dobrowin： Keith Lane01-Oct-1999Zimbabwe had only one chance to qualify for the LGCUP final on Sunday. Theyhad to beat a very confident and balanced Indian team convincingly. India,unlike the other teams in the tournament, had already played numerousmatches this season and was the form team. For Zimbabwe to pull off a winthey would have had to play well above themselves.This was not to be. Zimbabwe came up against a determined Sourav Ganguly whosmote the bowlers to all parts of the ground and with his 139, at nearly arun a ball, helped India post the highest score of the tournament, 277/6.Zimbabwe had to score 278 in 50 overs, to win the match, and 42.1 overs toimprove their net run rate to qualify for the final on Sunday. Startingwell, it all petered out to be dismissed for 170 and allowed theirneighbours South Africa to meet the Indians in the final.With overcast conditions and some dampness from late afternoon watering,both captains were keen to win the toss and field first. Zimbabwe drew firstblood, winning the important toss and electing to field. The pitch laterturned out to be the best of the tournament so far.India kept an unchanged team while Zimbabwe brought in Henry Olonga for PaulStrang and Mpumelo “Pommie” Mbangwa for David Mutendera.Neil Johnson and Mbangwa shared the new ball for Zimbabwe, with the lefthanders Sadagoppan Ramesh and Sourav Ganguly taking strike. It was Rameshwho sent a short ball from Johnson scurrying to the square leg boundary toend the first over. Early movement through the air made it difficult for thebowlers to find the correct line and a few wides resulted. Johnsonespecially was guilty of bowling on both sides of the wickets. He washowever carrying a slight groin injury.Ganguly got his boundary count going with a cover drive off Mbangwa offeringsome width outside the off. With few balls troubling the batsmen, and hardlyany balls beating the edge, the pitch looked a good one to bat on. With theadded advantage of the quick outfield and the shorter boundaries, Zimbabwecould find themselves chasing a bigger than expected total.Alistair Campbell was forced to remove the injured Johnson (4-0-14-0) fromthe attack and replace him with the pace of Henry Olonga. Deciding to bowlround the wicket and pushing the ball into the left handers he started offwell giving away a single wide.Without scoring boundaries, the Indian batsmen showed that by cleverplacement and good running between the wickets, six runs per over waspossible. Waiting for anything loose was the order of the day. Ganguly,starting off patiently, pulled a Mbangwa short delivery to the square legboundary. Over correcting in the same over Ganguly beautifully drove theover-pitched delivery to the cover boundary to bring the 50 up in the 12 thover.Andrew Whittall was brought on and bowled five good balls before Gangulyneatly guided a ball through the vacant slip area to the third-man boundary.A glanced four, to fine leg, from Ganguly off Olonga brought up the end ofthe 15 th over with India on 67With the score on 70 and the start of the 17 th over, Guy Whittall with hismedium pacers replaced Olonga (4-0-15-0). The change in pace had Ramesh, onthe front foot, dragging the first ball onto the stumps to be bowled for 31.Robin Singh, in his 100 th one-day international, came out as a surprisenumber three, and was off the mark straight away with a little nudge towardssquare leg.The Whittall cousins, Andrew the off-spinner, and Guy the seamer, put thebrakes on the Indian run rate, with no boundaries and only 12 runs beingscored between the 15 th and 20 th overs.Singh brought up his first boundary with a lap sweep off Andrew Whittall inthe 22 nd over and followed it, the next delivery with a sweep, clearing theinfield, to the long leg boundary. The two boundaries injected Ganguly intoaction driving Guy Whittall to the wide long off fence.Andy Whittall not believing that the left handed Singh could sweep, temptedhim again on the leg stump and received the same medicine, a four to longleg. Changing his line to the off stump nearly brought him reward with auppish push to point and then beating the edge to one turning across thebatsman.The 100 came up in the 24th over just before a mix-up between the batsmennearly caused the run out of Singh but the throw went to the keeper and notthe bowler.Ganguly edged closer to his 50 with a great cover drive for four off GuyWhittall, and then with a prod to the off-side reached his 29 th one-dayinternational 50.Robin Singh must count himself very lucky. Going down the pitch afterpushing to Andrew Whittall in the covers he scampered back to see the returnmake a direct hit on the stumps. Numerous replays seemed to indicate that hewas short of his ground, and yet the third umpire, Athar Zaidi, decided thathe was home. Was this another case of a mistake by the third umpire.Using the life line given to him, Singh smashed a leg side delivery fromOlonga, who had replaced Guy Whittall (6-0-28-1), well over fine leg for anamazing six.Mbangwa was having a bit of a nightmare in the field. First he ran past aGanguly four at third-man, off Olonga, and then dropped and palmed a fairlysimple catch off the same batsman over the boundary at long on. Flower was alittle bit more annoyed than Olonga. Ganguly had 68 at that stage andMbangwa will long remember what Ganguly ended on.Ganguly, striking the ball with excellent timing, started the 36 th overwith a massive six over the head of bowler Flower. Singh not to be outdonesmashed Mbangwa past mid-on in the next over, with the normally excellentZimbabwe ground fielding leaving a lot to be desired.Singh’s luck eventually ran out, chipping a slower ball from Whittall intothe covers to the substitute fielder Arnold Blignaut, on for Johnson. Singhhad used his chances well ending on 41 and India 177/2.Rahul Dravid joined Ganguly and, in the 41 st over, was the first tocongratulate his colleague with his eighth 100, and second against Zimbabwe,in one-day internationals, when the latter pushed a single to mid on offMbangwa. Ganguly did however have a scare at 97 when taking a quick singlewatched the underhand throw from mid off just miss with him still two metersout.Whittall was welcomed back into the attack with Ganguly sending the ballsoaring over the mid-wicket fence for the maximum. Two balls later the samemedicine, this time well over long on to record 17 runs off the 43 rd over.With Johnson having a groin injury, makeshift bowler Murray Goodwin wasbrought on and struck in his second over with Dravid, a long way down thewicket and playing across the line, adjudged LBW for 12 and India 213/3.Captain Ajay Jadeja quickly into his stride, and only the third ball faced,flicked Goodwin handsomely over long leg for six. Trying to hit Olonga overthe cover boundary was his undoing with Johnson making a good catch. Jadejaout for eight and India 224/4.With five overs left and six wickets in hand Guy Fawkes came early toNairobi. Ganguly had lit the fuse and exploded into life sending two ballsfrom Andrew Whittall over the ropes for the maximum. With the fuse burnt outhe lost his wicket to Olonga when he tried to clear the infield only to findCampbell under it at cover. Ganguly left, to a standing ovation, havingscored 139 off 147 balls including 11 fours and five sixes leaving India on245/5.There was to be no let up for Zimbabwe. Sunil Joshi coming in at numberseven, and a licence to hit, smashed two fours off Guy Whittall to bring upthe 250 in the 48th over. He continued his attack on Olonga sending the pacebowler for a six over mid-on, and then Whittall again hitting the ball overthe stand.Revenge was sweet for Whittall as Joshi forcing, played well outside a ballto see his middle stump uprooted. A whirlwind innings of 25 off 13 ballscame to an end. With three balls to go Bhardwaj (6*) and Nikhil Chopra (2*)had helped India to 277/6 and Zimbabwe were all but out of the tournament.Guy Whittall had picked up 3/55 and Henry Olonga 2/48, but it was an inningspurely belonging to Ganguly.Neil Johnson, nursing a groin injury sustained when opening the bowling, andGrant Flower opened the innings for Zimbabwe, with the normal Indian pair ofVenkatesh Prasad and Debashish Mohanty starting with the ball.Johnson took three balls to pierce the off side field and race a cover driveto the fence off Prasad. Grant Flower took two balls to smash Mohanty pastmid off for a four. A three to the extra cover fence off the third ball, anda lofted drive, by Johnson, over mid on off the fifth got Zimbabwe away tothe start they needed.Prasad and Mohanty came back strongly to give away only five runs in thenext three overs.Flower seemed to take a liking to the bowling of Mohanty. Charging thebowler at almost every opportunity he slashed him to the point boundary inthe sixth over and then repeated a smash through the covers in the eighth.Prasad did not escape Flower’s attention, being flicked neatly overmid-wicket for a four.Chopra came on in the 10 th over. He was very well swept by Flower for afour to fine leg. Mohanty then dropped a sitter when Flower hit the ballstraight at him at mid on. Flower increased the agony by swinging the fourthball to the square leg fence and Zimbabwe’s 50 in the 10 th over.Flower’s flutter was short lived. In attempting to clear the on side field,he found an eager Dravid waiting to take a good catch at mid-wicket. Flowerwas on his way for 38 and Zimbabwe’s first wicket down at 52.Johnson as did Flower, showed no respect to Mohanty crunching him back tothe long on for a four and then stroking him square, past point, for a four.A mix-up between the two batsmen, and a great bit of fielding by Chopra atthird-man saw Campbell run out for two and Zimbabwe at 66/2.Joshi made his appearance, bowling to Stuart Carlisle, who had twotournament ducks to his name. He nearly made it three but managed to edge aswing across the line to the on side. Carlisle deciding that the run ratewas not what Zimbabwe needed, proceeded to smash Joshi over the mid-wicketfence for a six. He followed that with a cracking drive through the coversoff Mohanty and then sent Bhardwaj well over the ropes at long on for amassive six.Carlisle luck had to run out and eventually he help out to Dravid atmid-wicket off Mohanty for 21. Zimbabwe had slipped to 92/3 at the end ofthe 19 th over.At the start of the 20 th over Johnson reverse swept Bhardwaj to shortthird-man. Mohanty missed it, kicked it, chased it and then just as heneared the boundary slipped up. Ramesh coming round to field missed the balland nearly took out the advertising boards – a total comedy of errors.Joshi and Chopra bowling in tandem managed to further restrict the batsmen.Joshi was the to be the most expensive of the two with Goodwin twicesweeping him to the long leg boundary in consecutive overs.With a lot of shouting coming from the Indian players and the batsmen takingquick singles, overthrows were bound to happen. Robin Singh guilty of thefirst overthrow received a very convincing stare from captain Jadeja.Goodwin on 11, looking for runs, chipped a catch to Jadeja at mid-wicket offChopra and was followed first ball by Andrew Flower trapped on the backfoot. Zimbabwe suddenly struggling at 120/5 with Johnson not out on 45.Mohanty, who was having a shocker in the field, saw another ball slipthrough his legs. This time he got enough of something on the ball to stopit just short of the rope. Mohanty received applause from his teammates whenthe next ball to him was fielded at the first attempt.Johnson went to his 50, Chopra’s hatrick ball, with a four slashed throughbackward point where it was Ganguly’s turn to see the ball slip through hislegs. Jadeja at this stage implored his players to get their act together.It seemed to work with Joshi taking a great catch inches from the long onboundary to get rid of Johnson for 52. Chopra had taken three wickets in 2overs and Zimbabwe now in trouble at 131/6.Gavin Rennie and Guy Whittall, two new batsmen at the crease, pushed theball around for a few singles before Rennie lashed out to cut Chopra pastpoint. Ramesh brought on was also swept away by Rennie to square leg.Bhardwaj was next to strike, after giving Whittall a four over mid-wicket,he had Rennie top edging a sweep to Robin Singh at mid-wicket for 20.Bhardwaj got his second wicket with Whittall holing out at long on to Prasadfor 11 and Zimbabwe had slipped to 160/8.Andrew Whittall and Olonga stuck around for a few overs with Whittallcutting Prasad through the point area for four in the 37 th over. WithWhittall hitting Bhardwaj straight at Jadeja at mid-wicket for six, Zimbabwewas all but done. The match was over in the 39 th over when Olonga lost hiswicket to Chopra for four and Zimbabwe were all out for 170.Bhardwaj once again ended with three wickets and Chopra bagged four.
