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Sachin, Aravinda the kings of Lord's

It was a party at Lord's -- and their majesties Sachin Tendulkar and Aravinda D'Silva obliged their subjects, with a display of scintillant batting that made you wish, rather wistfully, that you could see them bat in tandem more often.

It was always going to be a showdown between the bowling strength of the MCC XI, against the awesome firepower of the Rest of the World batting lineup. And as it turned out, that is precisely what the full house got, in the Diana Memorial one dayer at Lord's.

Given that we are carrying the entire transcript of the running commentary, we won't go into the minute details here, providing instead broad brushstrokes of the game as it evolved.

Michael Atherton won the toss on a wicket with life and bounce fro the fast bowlers, and turn for the spinners, and opted to bat first. Very obvious decision -- when you have a strike force comprising Javagal Srinath, Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald and Anil Kumble, you do tend to fancy your chances at defending a total, so you would rather take first strike and bat without pressure on you.

At least, that would have been the theory -- but for it to work, the MCC XI needed to put up a good total. On this wicket, against the ROW batting lineup, irrespective of how many outstanding quicks you have on your side, the batting side needed to get as close to 300 as they possibly could.

As it happened, they didn't even get close -- thanks largely to Wasim Akram's blistering opening spell. His bowling to fellow Lancastrian Michael Atherton was well enough in its way, but it was against Aamir Sohail that Akram was at his most venomous.

I wonder just what factors weigh in a bowler's mind at a time like this. Obviously, no bowler of Akram's class was going to give away gimme balls, even to a compatriot, even in an exhibition game. But Sohail, remember, was the man who on public television accused Akram of gambling and match-fixing. Akram appeared to have buried the hatchet when he recently named Sohail as his choice for Pakistan skipper -- but he did make a point or two in course of this morning.

Time and again, inswinging deliveries pitched on off, squaring the left-handed opener up and leaving him late, and each time that happened, Akram smiled angelically at Sohail and went back and did it again. Till the inevitable edge off yet another of those Akram specials found its way to the keeper.

Shivnaraine Chanderpaul is an accumulator, an anchor, and it was this role he played today. Not too well either, at least not in the beginning. Which is not necessarily a reflection on his class and ability -- it would have been surprising if Chanderpaul, coming out of the off season in the Caribbean, had batted in mid-season form. What was notable, thus, was the way he hung in there grimly, shrugging off the dot balls, the mistimed pushes and prods, and batted on till his feet began moving well again, before flowering out into some attractive strokeplay. Equally importantly, he showed that other quality of a good anchor -- having got set, he didn't give it up, batting throughout to go out on an unbeaten century.

Mohammad Azharuddin's knock was interesting, again, from a long term point of view. For one thing, he is in all likelihood going to captain India in the World Cup. For another, he has been in prime form of late, but has batted primarily on sub-continental tracks. This innings was therefore valuable to the observer, in providing a clue as to how he would cope on faster, bouncier wickets at this stage of his career.

Cope he did, and very well. Sure he was beaten time and again. Sure, he like Chanderpaul failed to really dominate the rival attack for most of his innings. Sure, the timing on his wristy flicks was off in the early part of his innings, while the extra pace and bounce defeated his trademark drives through the off. But he, like his partner, hung tough, batted himself into touch in alien conditions and once set, showed that given time to acclimatise, he would be a force in these conditions, come the World Cup -- something that, if the national selectors tend to observe these things, must have gladdened them considerably.

Ganguly was the other Indian on view and from the evidence of his brief innings, had no problem settling down. Then again, it wasn't likely he would -- it was in England that he came into his own, in 1996, and he apparently loves the conditions here, revelling in the ball coming nicely and high onto his bat. The brevity of his innings was understandable given that he came in during the 42nd over, the sweetness of touch on his drives indication that he would, like Azhar, be a valuable performer for India in 1999.

Ian Bishop sleepwalked through his spell and largely because of his generosity and that of Tom Moody, the Rest managed a late surge, getting to 261/4 in the allotted 50 overs. Check this rate of progression out, and you find that the Azharuddin-Chanderpaul partnership, while it hauled the MCC XI to respectability, did not exactly motor along during the middle overs, while both batsmen fought to regain their touch and timing: 24/0 in 5; 40/1 in 10; 63/2 in 15; 79/2 in 20; 99/2 in 25; 119/2 in 30; 153/2 in 35; 197/2 in 40; 221/3 in 45.

Sachin used only his five regular bowlers -- but then again, he was really under no pressure, with MCC going into the home stretch still short of the 200 mark. The other noticeable thing about his captaincy was aggression -- he kept the slip in place far longer than the mandatory 15 overs, kept his infielders well inside the 30-yard circle so that they could save the singles and choke the Azhar-Shivnaraine combine, preventing them from rotating strike.

Then came the ROW innings -- and cricket suddenly reached another plane altogether. Both Glenn McGrath and Srinath were coming back after injury layoffs. Neither of them really stretched for top pace, preferring to slip the leash only on the odd ball, bowling at a fraction under the flat-out mark and yet, on a helpful wicket, tormenting batsmen of the calibre of Jayasuriya, Anwar and Tendulkar.

The interesting contest was between Srinath and Jayasuriya, for starters. And this one, the Indian quick bowler, looking none the worse for his recent injury, won hands down. Jayasuriya, tied down by some very accurate bowling, finally tried to break loose with his favourite flicks over midwicket, middled one, repeated on the next, was comprehensively beaten for pace and trapped plumb in front of middle and off.

At the other end, there was an equally fascinating contest -- Glenn McGrath, having missed the Australian tour of India, was going up against Sachin Tendulkar. And in the first spell, if I were a boxing judge, I would give the bout, on split points, to the Australian bowler. Tendulkar, as is usual with him these days, seemed to be feeling out the conditions before launching himself, and during that period of caution, both McGrath and Srinath produced some supreme examples of the art of seam and swing bowling at pace, Srinath surprisingly troubling Tendulkar more than McGrath did.

Anwar looked sedate, coming in at one drop, and never really looked the part of the dominant opener he can be especially on sub-continental tracks. Donald, bowling off a shortened run -- a ploy, I suspect, to give his suspect heel as little work as possible -- but still generating quality pace for all that, took him out with a lifting delivery that cramped the batsman for room on a front foot shot.

That extra bounce and movement was in fact the feature of the first 15, 16 overs of the Rest innings, as three supreme exponents of fast bowling produced a lovely exhibition.

And then the batsmen took over -- Sachin Tendulkar and Aravinda D'Silva, easily two of the greatest of modern masters, on song and in determined mode, putting together an exhibition of batting that, in recent memory, was peerless.

What was most intriguing for me was the way they complemented each other. You would expect that from two players who play together all the time, which is not the case here. Yet when one was in any kind of trouble, the other stepped into the breach, both batsmen rotating the workload perfectly. An instance in point was Anil Kumble -- the minute he came on, his tormentor in chief, Aravinda, took charge, blasting the Indian leggie with a profusion of immaculate sweeps.

Off went Kumble, and promptly, Sachin upped the ante, first ensuring that McMillan, the fifth bowler, never settled into a rhythm, and then, when Atherton sought to cover the breach in his bowling attack caused by the assaults on Kumble and McMillan by bringing on Aamir Sohail, Tendulkar launched a savage assault on the Pakistan part-time bowler and potential captain that took the game out of MCC's hands.

This whole Kumble thing presents an interesting sidelights. Word now is that the Board is negotiating with Sri Lanka for a home and away, Test and one day series to plug the gap caused by the calling off (which is now very probable) of Pakistan's scheduled tour of India end-1998.

Now, no one plays Kumble as well as the Lankans do, and each time Kumble goes against them, he takes time to recover his equanimity. We now risk another mauling, and consequent damage to his morale, during the build up to the World Cup -- you surely don't see the selectors having the wisdom to rest him for that series, do you?

It might be argued that resting him could be as damaging to his morale, but I would disagree. If you dont play, you can always tell yourself that you would have done well. If you are slammed -- and slammed he will be -- then there is no cover for you.

Back to the game which, once the Aravinda-Sachin pairing let out the clutch, was as one sided as it was possible to get. Vide this rate of progression: 14/1 in 5; 47/1 in 10; 67/2 in 15; 83/2 in 20; 172/2 in 30; 208/2 in 35; 236/3 in 40.

Tendulkar compensated for his slow start with a spectacular assault after he crossed his first 50, Aravinda eased into top gear after shrugging off a slightly uncertain start, and between the two of them, they raised batting to another plane.

There's a lot in common between those two. Both started off as berserker batsmen who knew only the fast-faster-still faster mode of batsmanship. Of late, both have matured, learning to mix aggression with due caution, to pace themselves over time, to bat out the overs and take full toll where earlier, they tended to throw it away after having the bowlers on the mat.

More interestingly, both are classically correct batsmen, playing authentic cricket shots and yet making the task of run getting at top pace look easy.

Both fell to sheer ennui, towards the latter part of the innings, but by then the issue was never in doubt, and Rest romped home with over six overs adn the same number of wickets to spare.

Tendulkar appears of late to decide what he is going to do before he starts an innings. Today, the decision was, make a century -- so he went out and made just that. Vide his response to a question, during the presentation ceremony. "I desperately wanted to get a 100 here at Lord's, I've played a couple of Tests but never made it to the century so I wanted one this time, it is a good feeling to make a hundred on this ground."

Simple. What he wants, he gets. Including yet another man of the match award.

But for the Indian cricket fan, I would think the really good news that emerged out of this game was the return of Srinath to top form, after his injury layoff. This opens up the possibility of a Srinath-Agarkar new ball pairing -- and a mix of Srinath's new found parsimony and Agarkar's striking ability comes under the classification of good news.

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