At the very outset, he did his side a great favour by winning the toss and deciding to field on a wicket and in conditions which would have certainly favoured the West Indies. The Indian new ball bowlers Mohanty and Prasad bowled beautifully and soon Mohanty achieved the first breakthrough through a ball that swung in to left hander Griffith and crashed into his stumps of the inner edge.

Campbell and Chanderpaul steadied the boat until Chanderpaul was brilliantly stumped by MSK Prasad, re-emphasising the importance of employing a regular wicket-keeper in all forms of cricket. That made it 43 for 2 which soon became 57 for 4 as debutante Gayle and Lara were both removed by Robin Singh.

Both batsmen perished playing big shots, brought about by fine field placing by Ganguly. He had the fielders in the circle closer to the bat to stop quick singles from being taken and soon the pressure of a few dot balls led to big shots and their dismissals.

In a very similar situation at Singapore, Ricardo Powell smashed the Indian bowling to all parts of the ground whilst making 124 but here he survived a testing over from Mohanty who was immediately brought back by Ganguly. This did not deter him from re-focussing his attention on Venkatesh Prasad whom he hammered for 21 runs in 2 overs. The run rate suddenly improved and the partnership between Powell and Campbell reached 61, the total 121 in the 31st over when Powell was well caught by debutante Jacob Martin at deep extra cover.

From then on, the West Indies innings spluttered towards a mediocre total of 163 all out in the 47th over. MSK Prasad did a fine job behind the wickets, Ganguly led the side well, his field placings were attacking and the bowlers responded positively. The pick of the bowlers was Nikhil Chopra who took 2 for 17 in 10 overs. Robin Singh with 3 wickets along with Mohanty and Joshi with 2 each supported him well.

Venkatesh Prasad achieved the milestone of 150 wickets in one-dayers when he captured the wicket of Walsh.

India had a new opener in MSK Prasad who partnered Ramesh. Prasad's bat seemed to be very narrow in width as he continuously edged the ball in between the slips for boundaries scoring most of his 24 runs behind the wickets. Strangely Walsh was not called upon to bowl until the 12th over by which time India had reached 54 for no loss.

In the 13th over however, the partnership was finally broken, Prasad driving away from his body presented a simple catch to Griffith at cover-point and Collymore his first wicket in one-dayers.

Rahul Dravid strove purposefully to the wicket, but was soon out for 5, caught off a beast of a ball from Walsh. It climbed and seamed away from length and caught Rahul on the gloves on the way through to Jacobs. I dare say that a batsman of lesser calibre would have missed the ball altogether.

That was the last bit of success for the West Indies enjoyed and an unbeaten partnership of 106 runs between Ganguly and Ramesh saw India through to the target of 163. Ramesh scored 55 n.o. in 97 balls-slow by his standards and Saurav a wonderful 54 n.o. in 69 balls.

All in all it was a very satisfactory day for India at the office, very few errors were made, the whole team performed together especially the bowlers who did a fine job in restricting the opposition to just 163.

Due to the unbeaten knocks of skipper Ganguly and Ramesh, young Jacob Martin did not get to bat in his first one-day but earlier in the day he had taken 3 good catches in the outfield to prove that he has a safe pair of hands.

Ganguly will be looking to get a similar performance, better still the same result when the teams clash again tomorrow (12th sept). Another win will mean winning the best of 3 match series in the DMC Cup in Toronto.

Brief Scores:
West Indies: 163 all out in 46.2 overs
Sherwin Campbell 62, Powell 37.
Robin Singh 3 for 43, Joshi 2 for 30, Mohanty 2 for 31, Chopra 2 for 17.
India: 165 for 2 in 37.3 overs
Ramesh 55 n.o., Saurav Ganguly 54 no.

- Arjun Raja in Dubai, UAE

The views of this column are the author's own, and do not necessarily represent the views of NRI Online.