Laxman, Manohar delay the inevitable

Hyderabad ran out of steam after tea on the fourth day but not before giving Mumbai a rough time for a good four and a quarter hours. VVS Laxman was the only wicket that mattered and once he fell, all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place for Mumbai. Daniel Manohar's disciplined approach and Laxman's immense powers of concentration, added to his penchant for finding the boundary at habitual intervals, kept the scoreboard ticking without the respite of a wicket for the opposition. In his semifinal effort against Karnataka, Laxman had smote 51 fours and two sixes, which was about 61% of his total score. Even BB Nimbalkar did not hit as many boundaries in his 443. Here too Laxman offered the regulation chance early on but Tendulkar failed to latch on at slip and Mumbai must have been wondering what the payoff would be as the morning progressed.

The left handed Manohar is a naturally aggressive player but here he kept his instincts firmly in check and played an admirable foil to his partner. Manohar led a charmed life early on, as Rajesh Pawar had him plumb in front but without any response from the man in the white coat and then a little bit later, both batsmen pressed onwards for a single after momentarily freezing in indecision. Manohar was thrown out with several inches to spare but with the technology not placed at the disposal of the umpires for a more measured view of the incident, there was no choice but to give the batsman the benefit of doubt. Duly reaching his eighth hundred of the season, an awesome feat considering that no other batsman has more than five in a season in the entire history of the competition, Laxman was overcome by an uncharacteristic burst of impatience. Trying to establish his dominance over Pawar, Laxman, having already hit him for two sixes, danced down once again to launch him over the top and into kingdom's end. Pawar however was too canny for him this time and the ball was held back just a shade as Laxman discovered. Contact could be established only with the toe of his bat and the swirling hit descended into the hands of midoff.

The second wicket partnership, worth 188 priceless runs, had lasted until the fourth over after tea and the psychological blow that Laxman's loss dealt Hyderabad was quickly brought out in sharp focus. It wouldn't be far off the mark to say that Laxman is even more integral to Hyderabad's fortunes than Tendulkar is to Mumbai and even the knowledge of Mohd. Azharuddin's presence in the dressing room could not prevent the bottom falling out of the Hyderabad middle order. Manohar played the crudest of slogs, that would not have behoved a protagonist in Hyderabad's maidan cricket, to lose his off stump. Ajit Agarkar then returned with a venomous inswinger that caught Vanka Pratap on the full but although the trajectory was taking it down leg side, umpire Jasbir Singh signalled the marching orders. Agarkar left no room for doubt the next time round when he spreadeagled Riaz Sheikh' s stumps with another one that swung a long way in. Having spent the entire day yesterday on the sidelines, Azharuddin was barred by the laws of the game from coming out until the fall of the fifth wicket but the unseemly circumstances bore down heavily on him as he made a restrained three quarters of an hour long appearance on the stage. When at 239, Pawar got one to turn across his oustretched pad and kiss the glove on its way to silly point, Hyderabad's latterly terminally ill state proceeded into the condition of clinical death.