For once, adjectives cannot convey what happened at County Ground, set against the backdrop of River Tone which flows past the ground through the quaint English city of Taunton. Two Indians went on a rampage and set the ground ablaze with their dazzling batting. Saurav Ganguly was majestic, arrogant, and merciless. Rahul Dravid was a delight for those interested in technique, cool and composed as ever. Records fell by the wayside as the two Indians plundered runs like there was no tomorrow. To set the record straight, Ganguly (183) scored the highest-ever individual score by an Indian, his second-wicket partnership (318 runs) with Dravid (145) was the highest for any wicket, and India scored its highest-ever total.
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This is how one of the hacks described India’s batting: "Class, sophistication, style, brilliance, grandeur, audacity: there are many words which spring to mind when one sits back after having had the rare privilege to watch the greatest one-day international partnership of all time." Trevor Chesterfield wrote that "the batting of Dravid and Ganguly was such that it is doubtful whether many bowling attacks would have been able to contain such sublime and supreme strokeplay. They left you with the impression that having Tendulkar on board was superfluous baggage." In fact, the Sri Lankan bowling that day, according to another reporter, "was made to look like a Sunday afternoon romp as Ganguly and Dravid made mincemeat of the attack."
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Just to tell you how these two dominated India’s innings, only one other batsman reached double figures and the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh flopped. Missed catches, poor bowling, uninspiring captaincy and a small ground all contributed to India’s total of 373 for 6 in the stipulated overs. Ganguly belted the ball across the boundary 17 times, and over it another 7 times as India piled up runs against a team to whom they had lost miserably in the previous World Cup in Calcutta. The Sri Lankan bowling figures tell the story even better—Chaminda Vaas gave 84 runs in his 10 overs, even the great M. Muralitharan gave away 60 runs without taking a wicket.
From then on, the Sri Lankans never had a hope on earth. Well, they had the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya, R. Kaluwitharana, Aravinda de Silva and Arjun Ranatunga, but it was a nearly impossible task to chase the mammoth total. A half century by de Silva, another 42 by Ranatunga and a thirty-plus from Roshan Mahanama weren’t enough to take their team anywhere near the Indian total. Robin Singh took five wickets as the Lankans folded up for 216, and couldn’t even complete their stipulated overs. As Chesterfield aptly puts it, the rest of the Sri Lankans batted "as badly as they bowled and fielded; unimaginatively and without conviction."
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The result was a foregone one, a huge win for Indians and a chance to get into the next round. The world champs were thinking about packing their bags this time.
This That
- Other than Ganguly and Dravid, only other batsman, Azharuddin, reached double figures
- Ganguly’s 100 took 119 balls, but he scored his 150 in 143 balls
- Vaas gave 84 runs in his 10 overs
