CHENNAI: The buzz before this match centred mainly on Sourav Ganguly. However, a couple of hours after the second game of the Challenger Series for the NKP Salve Trophy between India Blue and India Green got underway on Monday, only Sachin Tendulkar was being discussed. The maestro smashed the India Green bowling to pulp during a marauding knock of 139, helping his team bounce back from Monday?
s loss with a massive 266-run run victory.
Batting first after winning the toss, India Blue, jolted initially by the pull-out of Virender Sehwag due to a hamstring injury suffered in the first match, finally got the other parts of the batting machine in order.
On a placid wicket, all-rounder Irfan Pathan, skipper Rahul Dravid and wicket-keeper batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni registered attacking half-centuries to complement Tendulkar?
s performance as the Blues racked up a massive 381-6 in 50 overs. It was always going to be too much of an ask for Mohammad Kaif?s ?
comeback men?, and they folded up for an embarrassing 113 in just 26.4 overs, with Parthiv Patel?
s 43 emerging as their top score. Harbhajan Singh was the wrecker-in-chief with 4-10.
Poor Ganguly.
He chose the wrong day to play his biggest match in months. The former India skipper?s performance card wasn?
t that bad. He fielded reasonably well. He rushed to advise the hapless Piyush Chawla after the youngster was taken for 21 runs in his first over by Sachin, a briefing that had its immediate effect when the 17-year-old returned to bowl a wicket-maiden.
He helped his captain with all his experience when Sachin was going hammer and tongs at a clueless bowling, rolled his arm over to return the most economical figures amongst the likes of Ashish Nehra and L Balaji. Then later, under the lights, displayed some ?old footage?
of his imperious off-side strokes before perishing to his indiscretion and a good catch at point. Not an off-day for a cricketer by any standards. Just that Sachin saved his best for the wrong day, going by Ganguly?
s perspective. Tuesday, perhaps, will give the Bengal left-hander a better opportunity to showcase his skills, against India Red.
With the kind of form Tendulkar is in, it is difficult to visualise any bowler playing in this event, who would have it in him to stop the man.
It seems that either the bowling being fed to him here is of too mediocre a quality, or the pitch is too flat. Perhaps this is the way great batsmen work. Their brilliance just makes everything else look so ordinary.
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