Yesterday, the stage was set for India. We were leading by more than 300 runs and the golden chance for India to win by 2-0 margin was waiting to be taken. All we needed to do was put the Englishmen in to bat again and get them out within the full two days that were left. Lotsa time at hand, and the momentum with us, what else could one ask for?
The first words I heard when I turned on the TV were of Harsha Bhogle saying Chandu Borde had announced the India won’t enforce the follow-on. What?!! What the hell is he thinking, I said to myself. Well, Dravid wanted to play it safe; as if someone had told him that if by any chance England was to level the series (highly improbable), he would not be allowed to enter India. As if that was not a shocker enough, Dravid went on to make the slowest 12 runs in the history of the game!
In my opinion, this absolutely and completely ridiculous negative decision changed the momentum in to England’s favour and our batsmen were left doing what the Englishmen were supposed to…trying to survive the swinging deliveries under cloudy conditions.
With that, any chances of winning the game sank. I was shocked and felt let down by Dravid. He has denied us fans a thoroughly enjoyable victory. As I write, play has been suspended at the Oval due to bad light.
We might still have an outside-of-the-universe chance of winning though, if the light gets better and one of the bowlers decides to bowl the spell of his life (just a disclaimer in case we do win, I don’t think it will be in use).
Xcuse me saar…that ‘Highly Improbable’ stuff was a real possibility! England had it in them to overhaul the deficit and mebbe give India a target of 120 odd that they might face difficulty! Dravid had every right to play safe…..
And oye! Whatz a cricket post doing in the Religion tag
All we needed was a bit more time in the end…a couple of hours more and we could have bowled them out. What’s the justification for waiting for the score to reach 500? 450 would have been more than enough and add to that his 90+ ball 12 runs.
And, Cricket is also a religion, no?
Bah!