Wisden 20:20
A tale of two innings
S Rajesh
The Sourav Ganguly-VVS Laxman partnership saw two contrasting styles of batsmanship. Laxman was in prime form, stroking the ball with casual elegance, while Ganguly wasn’t always fluent, but fought on.
Out of Ganguly’s 48 runs, only a third of them came on the off side, and just one in the cover region, once his favourite area of run-scoring. Thirty runs came in the arc between midwicket and fine leg, as he repeatedly ventured to play the pull, a shot which had got him in trouble in Georgetown. The West Indian bowlers were bowling to a plan too, with almost 40% of the deliveries on middle stump or further leg side.
For Laxman, on the other hand, 94% of the deliveries were on or outside off. But only half of his total runs came on that side of the wicket, as he played a few spanking pulls off balls which pitched around his off stump. Laxman was masterful with his cover-drives too, scoring 15 runs in that region.
When in form, Ganguly favours scoring off the front foot, but today he struggled, making just seven runs off 84 balls when playing forward. He was much more productive playing back, scoring 41 from 51 balls. Laxman was comfortable off either foot, scoring 28 runs when playing forward and 20 off the back foot.
Clearly, Ganguly wasn’t at his vintage best. All the more credit to him for hanging in there and steering India out of a tricky situation.
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