India hoping to hold up the Sri Lankan express

Cricket

DEREK PRINGLE

reports from Calcutta

It is unseasonally hot here at the moment and tempers are fraying as this cricket-bonkers city gears itself up towards today's semi- final between India and Sri Lanka. At net practice on Monday, a photographer had a gun turned on him by a policeman, simply for overstepping the barriers.

Serious measures perhaps, but then cricket in Calcutta has always been more than just a game. As if to confirm the point, pounds 20 tickets are changing hands for pounds 400, and India has allegedly offered Pakistan pounds 4m to let them stage the final in Calcutta instead of Lahore. It was an offer more likely to have been agreed to, despite Pakistan's early exit, had India perhaps offered them Kashmir instead.

If it did get shifted and India were in the final, the excitement here would come close to hysteria. Even for yesterday's practice under lights, the riot police were out in force as huge crowds gathered just to glimpse a shadowy profile, or snatch a glimpse of coloured clothing, as their heroes arrived by coach. These are crowds that an average English county would be proud to get in a whole season, crowds that make a 110,000 sell- out at Eden Gardens one of the great spectacles of world sport.

The noise will be numbing, which means that whoever bats second will not only need nerves of steel but earplugs to allow themselves to think. Chasing anything over 240 will be difficult, not least because of the pressure and the slight deterioration of the pitch, which despite being relaid is still slow and will probably favour spin.

Sri Lanka are a side who claim to prefer chasing totals to setting them, and they come into this game having already beaten India, overhauling the home side's 271 in Delhi for the loss of just four wickets.

So far, with the starts given to them by their blazing opener Sanath Jayasuriya, the middle overs, particularly on these pitches, have been a formality. The middle order have yet to be stretched and they have strolled home as a result. The alarming thing from India's point of view, however, is that Sri Lanka's other opening batsman and wicketkeeper, Romesh Kaluwitharana, has yet to hit paydirt, and it could be carnage if the two come off in tandem.

But Mohammed Azharuddin will have been plotting with his bowlers since the teams last met. For one thing, he will probably not open with Manoj Prabhakar, whose two opening overs cost 33 runs. On the evidence so far, India will probably open with Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad, both products of the Pace Academy in Madras run by Dennis Lillee.

Their method has been to bang it in short to try to cut out being driven over the top, with Prasad occasionally slipping in a well-disguised slower ball for variation. So far its effectiveness is unproven and in their quarter-final clash against Pakistan, India's pace men still managed to concede around eight an over.

However, unlike Sri Lanka, who have identified that specialist bowlers are almost superfluous on pitches as flat as these, India will have four specialist bowlers, including two spinners, Anil Kumble and Venkatapathy Raju. If Sri Lanka do end up chasing a sizeable total, the pair's overs will be crucial to India's chances should Arjuna Ranatunga's men get their customary flying start.

With a 2.30pm start, there will be no dampness or dew to tempt the captain winning the toss to field first, and should India win it, they will surely bat. As Brian Lara showed against South Africa, there is really no substitute for runs on the board and Sachin Tendulkar will once again be itching to regain the spotlight he has momentarily lost to the Trinidadian and Australia's Mark Waugh.

n Pakistan's Javed Miandad, 38, has announced his retirement from international cricket, claiming his skills were not properly utilised during the World Cup. "I was pushed down the batting order and forced to bat at No 6 instead of sending me in at No 3 or 4," he said.