Date-stamped : 16 Feb95 - 22:29
ngland "A" v India "A", ODI 3 (D/N)
played at the Municipal Stadium, Hyderabad, 16 February 1995

Knight's century a fitting finale - Simon Hughes

CONFIDENCE is an elusive quality,  but  it  energises  the  parts
other    spirits  cannot  reach.  Under  the  floodlights of  the
shambolic municipal stadium, it fuelled England A to their   most
emphatic win of the tour, and stole the one-day series from under
the Indians' noses. Again it was a splendid team performance with
high    octane   fielding,  persistent bowling  and  exhilarating
stroke-play.

This came  as  a  pleasant  surprise  as  24  hours  earlier  the
productive  Indian  experience looked to be coming to a sour end.
The floodlights failed as England were about to practise, and the
only  thing  they  learnt  from  the  session was that at dusk in
Hyderabad you get set on by thousands of mosquitos.

Returning to the dressing  room  in  haste,  the  team's  leading
bowlers, Dominic Cork and Glen Chapple discovered their boots had
been stolen. The coloured kit  had  also  arrived minus   several
pairs of trousers.

The England players emerged on the day in a strip the  colour  of
murky  dish- water but Nick Knight put everyone's mind at rest by
batting through the innings, a  feat  which  required skill   and
stamina  in  equal  measure.  A  wicket  of ballooning bounce and
accurate seam bowling restricted Knight and Hemp  to  25  in  the
first  10  overs,  but  when  Hemp was out splicing a drive, Mark
Ramprakash strode in to take charge.

Two memorable straight sixes on to the pavilion roof

He had mentioned earlier his appetite for the  left-arm  spin  of
Chatterjee  -  a  crab-like  bowler similar to David Steele - and
savaged his first three overs for  34,  including  two  memorable
straight  sixes  on  to the pavilion roof. His follow-through was
reminiscent of the golfer, John Daly.

Knight followed his lead, larruping Chatterjee  for  another  six
over  midwicket,  sweeping  cleverly  and  scampering between the
wickets. He also benefited from a new bat a Bombay carpenter  had
kindly  reshaped for him. It was fitting that Knight should score
a hundred here, as he was the only main batsman left who had  not
made a major score.

The spinners, who had tied up England in previous  matches,  were
blitzed  out  of  the attack (74 runs came in a 10-over period in
mid-innings) and very much against the run  of  play,  Ramprakash
was  yorked.  Clearly  he  is too good for this level. Three more
wickets fell quickly, but Cork, using his trusty  leg-side  pick-
up,  and  Knight ensured the final overs were properly plundered.
The total was at least 30 runs over par. It was  completely  out
of reach by the time Cork and Chapple had finished.

Undeflected by the loss of their favourite footwear  or  frequent
problems  with  the black  conjurer's  curtain covering the sight
screen, they knocked over both openers with only seven   on   the
board  placing the customary onus on Mazumdar and Dravid to paper
over the cracks. For once the pressure was  too much.   Mazumdar,
hit  painfully on the inside thigh, then chipped limply to cover,
and Dravid, the one  class  batsman  in  the  Indian  side,   was
beaten by Stemp's quic ker ball. The innings became a procession,
silencing the various horn-blowers in a  sparse crowd.

The Indians could have played their final trump card,  sabotaging
the  game  by  turning  off  the  lights,  but  by then the chief
electrician had fallen asleep.  So England  A  cleaned up, taking
the  Test series 3-0 and the  one-dayers 2-1,  and now move on to
Bangladesh.  What's the secret?  FITS - Flexibility, Intelligence
and Team Spirit.  But because Hyderabad is a dry state the  cele-
bration was, like the finale, a non-event.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk)
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