India put themselves under needless pressure |
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Monday August 13, 01:20 AM
Rahul Dravid and his thinktank did not exactly cover themselves with glory. The follow-on was not enforced on England although Team India were 319 runs to the good.
More than the weight of the first innings lead the fact that there was a typical London cloud cover, which the seamers could have exploited as well or better than the English seamers did, seemed to scream out the message that India should bowl again.
There was a needless momentum shift because of the very negative attitude the skipper suddenly assumed.
When Anderson and Tremlett reduced India to 11/3, some doubts surfaced over which of the two teams was in the ascendant in this Test. The Indian action was a bit like handing a drowning opponent, in a no-holds barred contest, a helping hand to stay afloat.
How silly his decision was may have dawned on Dravid as he was reduced to a passenger at the batting crease, unable to get the ball off the square in batting conditions in which his bowlers would have excelled.
Just imagine England’s plight in such conditions against the background of the three innings in which they have flopped after the Lord’s Test.
The worst part of the decision was it seemed a predetermined one, probably arrived at on Sunday night itself.
The team gave themselves no chance to study the playing conditions of the morning and the fourth day to shape their strategy. Dravid was signaling his choice of roller to the curator the moment Kumble trapped Panesar in front to go ahead of Glenn McGrath and leave a triumvirate of spinners at the top of the Test wicket-takers’ list.
There is always a twist in the tale in Oval Tests, the last one having ended in bizarre circumstances when Pakistan were said to have forfeited the Test by an obstinate and pedantic umpire in Darrell Hair. A year earlier, rain came at the very end of a dramatic Test to ensure England would snatch the Ashes from Australia. The only twist here may have been India’s decision to bat again.
In their passage to The Oval, India were a Test ahead and after the first innings of 664 were assured a series win already and there was little need for getting negative when on the threshold. India’s seamers, who consistently outbowled their English counterparts at Trent Bridge and even at the Oval where they got the hard ball to do much more, may still wrap things up and allow Dravid the last laugh with a 2-0 series win.
This was a strange route to take. By opening up even a mathematical chance for England to win the Test and level the series, India were putting themselves under needless pressure in batting conditions that had become so difficult that the team so far ahead had to perform as if the roles had somehow been reversed.
Ganguly had to bat out of his skin to collect runs and push India towards the 420-run mark that has never been breached in a successful fourth innings chase.
The one certainty that will materialise on Monday, after Ganguly’s exquisite off-side strokes lit up the batting, is England will lose their first home series in six years to end a very successful run of eight series wins and three draws. The one incentive for India to win the is that in doing so they will join England as second in the official Test rankings while a draw would give them only the joint third spot with Sri Lanka.
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