India swamp Kenya

The thinking is that getting countries like Kenya to play at this level will help improve their cricketing standards. After all, runs the argument, think of Sri Lanka, given Test status in the late eighties and a World Cup winner in 1996!

Maybe the guys who hold this argument have a point -- but until that happens, until the standards of such countries actually go up, it's going to make for some very painful watching.

And while on making points, Saurav Ganguly not so long ago had made one of his own: why, he asked, is it that when one team in a triangular is clearly out of it at the halfway stage, the organisers don't go in for a best-of-three finals between the two top sides instead of sticking to the league format?

He could have a point -- South Africa and India will play Kenya once more apiece, and it is hard to imagine what purpose it will serve, barring the inflating of a few batting and bowling averages. Imagine, instead, a best of three finals between the host country and India?

Doing a regulation match-report for this game could only weary the reader. Suffice to say that the pitch was a touch dodgy, with the odd ball behaving itself while the rest kept lower than they had any right to.

Maurice Odumbe won the toss, and opted to bat. And inside of the first ten overs, it was apparent that this was going to be a disaster.

The wickets tumbled -- and the dismissals belonged to two distinct categories. Those that fell to the seam of Ajit Agarkar owed to a strange desire, on the part of the batsmen, to hop onto the back foot irrespective of length. Take the dismissal of Ravindu Shah in the second over -- a quickish delivery hitting back of a length and seaming in saw the batsman on the back foot trying to play across the line, getting beaten and bowled through the gate.

Agarkar got two more that way -- one bowled, the other LBW. (And Srinath, later in the day, got Jimmy Kamande out in the same fashion). The only change in Agarkar's modus operandi meanwhile came in the Steve Tikolo dismissal. Kenya's best batsman has 10 fifties and 1 century in 39 games. On the day, though, he got just one -- Agarkar bowled one just outside off, seaming away fractionally off short of a length and Tikolo, with front foot nowhere in position, flashed a drive that took the outer edge en route to Dasgupta.

For his part, Anil Kumble in his very first over (the 14th of the innings) got a wicket when skipper Maurice Odumbe, whose personal best incidentally is 83 versus India in Gwalior 1997-98, pushed his pad at a top spinner without the bat anywhere in line and despite a healthy stride forward, was declared LBW.

Having discovered what he needed to do, Kumble just kept doing it -- sending down an array of top spinners and biding his time until the next batsman walked into the LBW trap.

The only point of note in the Kenyan innings was a bizarre incident involving Martin Suji and Umpire Dave Orchard. Suji drove Ganguly back down the track, the bowler took a bit of the sting out of the shot, mid off fielded. Meanwhile, the batsman and non-striker went through ever call ever heard on a cricket pitch -- Yes, no, hang on, waiting, can I take a rain check on this one -- and the upshot was the non-striker didn't move, while the batsman moved far too much and had to run right back. Tendulkar at mid off threw to the batsman's end, Dasgupta took the bails off, and Dave Orchard at square leg declared the batsman out.

He was in, actually -- by a fair distance.

Suji walked. All the way to the boundary, and then beyond. Meanwhile, Dave Orchard got a call on the walkie-talkie from the third umpire. And after a bit of natter , Orchard waved Suji back to the batting crease.

It raises more questions than my SSLC exam paper ever did -- and frankly, I am as stuck for answers now, as I was then. Firstly, is there a rule in operation which says that the third umpire may not give a decision unless consulted? There is? If that was the case, why was said third umpire on this occasion calling up Orchard and warbling 'I just called to say you're wrong' in the latter's ears? Who asked him for an opinion? Alternately, who told him he could give one without being asked?

Secondly, is there a rule which says that once a batsman who has been given out has crossed the boundary line, he may not -- that is spelt n-o-t -- be recalled? There is? Then what was this all about?

It is not the intention, here, to quarrel with the decision -- it would in fact have been horribly unfair had Suji been given out with his bat a good foot behind the line. In that sense, you've got to applaud the fact that commonsense prevailed, and the third umpire asked the man in the middle to reverse an obviously stupid decision.

The question is, why doesn't commonplace prevail more often? Why doesn't the video umpire reverse equally silly decisions all the time?

It needs pointing out that for the second day game running, the umpiring approached shambolic levels.

Off the first ball of the next over, Kumble in fact got yet another batsman bang in front with another top spinner and this time Orchard, now at the business end of the pitch, gave the batsman the benefit of doubt he must have looked very hard to find. And a little later in the programme, Harbhajan Singh had a batsman pushing at him in defence, and getting the ball clearly onto his gloves for silly point to snap up -- only for the umpire to turn the appeal down.

How does the party line go? 'Umpires are human after all, they all make mistakes, it all evens out in the end, there is no point in adding to the pressure by making a fuss over every single wrong decision.'

Right. And Shaun Pollock, completely ignoring the fact that the South Africans have all along been priding themselves on being the first to come up with technological innovations, argued after the previous game that he hadn't seen replays of the Kallis catch (In passing, the television broadcasters added insult to injury by refusing to show the right angle on the Klusener "catch" off Dravid, and instead showed us seven -- count them, seven -- replays of Sehwag playing and missing at the next ball) but figured that the umpire in the middle was the best person to judge and the third umpire should not be consulted at all on such occasions.

Fair enough. But would it be in order for us to ask that similar considerations be given to umpires in other parts of the world? Would it be okay to ask South Africa -- and England, and Australia, and New Zealand, and pretty much just about every other country going -- to remember the words to the "Umpires are human..." song, and sing it next time they go travelling? (While on the subject, I seem to recall that Pollock's predecessor, Hansie Cronje, once pushed a stump through the door of the umpires' dressing room to register his complete faith in their abilities).

It's like that tongue in cheek definition of irregular verbs: My child is a hyperactive over-achiever, yours is a noisy bloody brat who needs his earhole clipped. Similarly -- my umpire is human, yours is a blind, biased, son of a bachelor!

Meanwhile, where were we? Ah yes, Srinath came back for a second spell and got two wickets to finish off the Kenyan innings, for 90, in 37.1 overs.

India decided to treat the chase as a net for those that needed them. Thus, Deep Dasgupta opened with Virendra Sehwag. The latter swung his bat to good effect, peppering the boundaries with boundaries, while Dasgupta batted compactly and with noticeable comfort. The 50 came up at the end of the 6th over, and when the players left the field for lunch, India was already 60 for no loss off just 8 overs.

After a stage-wait of half an hour, the openers came back. And finished it off to seal the ten wicket win inside 12 overs, in the process comfortably claiming the bonus point and now heading the table, thanks to a far better net run rate.