Monday, November 16, 2009

The Wall: Solid, yet not immobile

Rahul Dravid's 177* yesterday will surely rank as one of his best, from an external and internal perspective both. Its not often that a side can finish the day at 385-6 after being 32-4 at one stage. Three batsmen made it possible but Dravid's innings was the most significant. Even more important was the fact that the fightback was not centered around mere wicket preservation; runs were scored too. Dravid and Dhoni scored centuries at a strike rate of 70, which means four runs an over (4.2 if you want to be precise). (I missed most of the day's play but am able to catch up now with the stored replay and highlights; thanks be to the wonders of streaming broadband video). I'd wondered whether Dravid was finished in all forms of cricket; on the evidence of this innings, he most emphatically is not.

When you can have days like this, test cricket will do well. Interestingly, while the morning crowd was not gigantic in numbers, it was loud enough to frame the action appropriately. Watching cricketers in white playing with classical test cricket fields was a reassuring sight, and a good reminder of why I prefer this form of cricket the most: it just looks and feels better, dammit!

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7 Comments:

Blogger straight point said...

the difference was in his approach samir... for the player of his experience and caliber one always wondered why he hold himself back...

may be just on this evidence of what he can achieve by being little more aware of scoring opportunities... he will play future games with similar approach...

9:35 AM  
Blogger Samir Chopra said...

SP: When Dravid gets going his strokeplay is exquisite. He should treat us to more of it!

11:31 AM  
Blogger Jaunty Quicksand said...

I am not quite sure why he batted the way he did, but I hope this shows him that the best way to put behind a dismal start to the innings is to score runs.

By scoring so much, all the "momentum" that Sri lanka had has been taken away.

It was fun watching him all day. (I did a running diary of the day's play on my blog, should you be interested).

I hope he can make a triple out of it. Only the sheer weight of a big total to chase is likely to force a result in this game.

2:07 PM  
Blogger Samir Chopra said...

JQ: I'm sure Dravid has got this innings filed away as a data point for the future. I agree too, that only a very big score will create the pressure to try and force a result. The Indian score as it stands now, could easily turn into a 430 all out. So, theres work to be done today, and I'm sure RD is thinking about it.

Thanks for the pointer; I'll check it out!

10:55 PM  
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1:43 AM  
Blogger Vinish Garg said...

Dravid is the most selfless cricketer India has ever produced. And the series against SL again proved it. See http://vinishgrg.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/tendulkar-or-tendulkarisation-of-cricket/ for more on this.

4:21 AM  
Anonymous dravid fan said...

One of the best innings by Dravid.What a man!
Score was 32/4 and I shut down my Cricinfo window.But after 3-4 hrs, when I saw Dravid still playing, I followed the game for whole day.I was amazed with the strike rate with which he built his innings up.
Anyways, he has saved his team quite a few times in the past, so nothing surprising.

9:50 AM  

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