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.