The rains don't like missed opportunities either
Time to go to bed. It doesn't look like the Basin Reserve is going to get any drier. Miracles can happen, and hopefully, there will be time enough to get 2 more NZ wickets. Still, whatever the result, it shouldn't have been this close. NZ have only faced 94.3 overs thus far in their second innings. At tea-time on the *third* day India were 448 ahead. Why are they still hunting for two wickets on the fifth day?
posted by Samir Chopra at 11:29 PM
4 Comments:
ugh...the match has finally ended in a draw. a bit unfortunate on India's part but as you said, the rains don't like missed opportunities.
As I rewrite this comment, it is time to eat humble pie and acknowledge that MSD sacrificed a Test victory in order to ensure a series win. A conservative approach that I thought was not his style.
I supported his decision to keep batting as it put the game beyond the reach of the Kiwis but then when he employed just 2 close-in fielders while four roamed the fences I wondered what he was trying to protect. In my mind, it defeated the whole reason he put up that big a total.
In the end, two glaring umpire errors made it closer than it really was (though, in total fairness, Franklin and Vettori were given not out on other occasions).
Now that he has accomplished the series win in New Zealand, I hope he looks to be more ruthless in the future, though the portents do not seem encouraging that he will.
History does have a way of weighing heavily in one's mind, doesn't it?
Well Samir, you sure have caught me smack on the balls. I bow down to you and eat 10kgs of humble pie.
Don't misconstrue this as making excuses, but I truly wasn't following the match properly, just the scores as I was moving homes, and I didn't have a morsel of an idea about the weather or the DST issue, so I had made a foolish comment like that.
Besides, thinking about it, perhaps you're right. NZ wouldn't have had a rat's chance in hell of leveling the series chasing more than 500. What Astle did was a one-off, and with a bowler of the quality of Zak, they could've easily blown off the top order like they did even with about 530!
I hate saying "I told you so" when predictions I wish didn't come true, do! Yargh. I'm going to write an article soon on CI about Melbourne 1986, a test that will forever remain etched in my mind as a lame-arse demonstration of India's test cricket.
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