West Indies Underdogs

Their one world-class batsman has long since departed and their meanest bowler is on his way home today.

Their valuable and worthy vice-captain has had sport's most damning accusation, that of cheat, unjustly tagged onto him by the match referee.

And the West Indies take on India in the final of the triangular Coca- Cola Cup at the Harare Sports Club today, not only without the injured Brian Lara and Cameron Cuffy and with Ridley Jacobs reputation besmirched, but after comfortably losing both qualifying matches to the same opponents who also crushed Zimbabwe twice.

It is an intimidating challenge compounded by the awesome form of Sachin Tendulkar, who has been out only once in four innings in the preliminaries.

The little Indian maestro has prepared himself for the final with unbeaten scores of 81 and 112 against the West Indies to add to 70 not out and 9, his only failure, against Zimbabwe.

So the odds overwhelmingly favour India but, cricket being cricket, they do not entirely preclude the West Indies.

India rely as heavily on Tendulkar as the West Indies did on Lara and, in the one match in which he fell early, they only got up to pass Zimbabwe's 234 for six with four balls to spare.

Their captain, Saurav Ganguly, Tendulkar's left-handed opening partner, has found elusive form with scores of 85, 20 and 62 in his last three innings.

But his decision to bowl first on winning the toss in all four preliminaries means that India have not yet been exposed to batting in the early morning when conditions have favoured the fast bowlers.

Zimbabwe lost half their wickets within the first 13 overs against them here in their first match and two wickets in the first two overs in the second.

The West Indies were virtually beaten in their first match against the Indians in Bulawayo when they were 47 for five in the 25th over.

Although their start was much more solid in the second last Wednesday, there was still swerve for the Indians.

India will use two impressive left-armers, Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan, with the new ball today supported by the right-armer Dabidesh Mohanty.

If Carl Hooper wins the toss, Merv Dillon, Corey Collymore and Reon King should have an early advantage and a chance to remove Tendulkar early.

I think we'll upset the applecart I think we'll win, Hooper said yesterday.

This is not the best Indian One-Day team I have played against. They miss the pace of someone like Javagal Srinath, but they are a good side they'll have a lot of good players out there.

They will need that or an extra special batting performance to claim the Cup. They had both the last time the teams met in the final of a triangular series, also involving Zimbabwe, in Singapore in September, 1999.

Then, Lara won the toss, chose to bowl and Tendulkar cut Courtney Walsh's last ball of the first over to Hendy Bryan at third man, out without scoring.

Rahul Dravid, who remains the main batting threat after Tendulkar today, rallied India to 254 for six with an unbeaten 103 and when the West Indies were 67 for four and 128 for five in reply, they seemed to have no hope.

It was then that Ricardo Powell remember him? aged 20 and in his third international match, devastated the Indian bowling with 124 from 93 balls with eight sixes and nine fours to carry the West Indies to a rare tournament triumph.