Cricket: From the Far End

There is a line in a P G Wodehouse book about how easy fishing is at some place, it goes something like “you just throw the hook and the fish do the rest”. Getting India to chase a substantial score in the fourth innings must be something like this for the other teams. Just throw the ball somewhere near the bat, most top order will self-destruct, one of the balls will be very good to get someone anyway, somebody- mostly from the tail- will linger, but overall this is the time to increase your bowling averages and some high praise (Flintoff’s great captaincy at Mumbai with all that “Ring of fire” thing? Even Zimbabwe could have won there because the bowling doesn’t really matter for India in such cases).

Most old patterns repeated yesterday. Just like the last five wins mentioned earlier, the one in the last test was followed by this defeat. Just like the five occurances in the last 3 years, this was a pathetic loss with hardly any fight.

So add one to the list in the earlier post. Against South Africa, lost, 179 against 354.

In the second test at Durban, India are 38/2, chasing 354 on the last day.

So it’s up to Jaffer, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Laxman and Dhoni mainly to either save or win the game for India. They may get some help from the weather at Durban. But otherwise with Dravid already back, they are faced with a task they have never really handled well.

Tendulkar and Ganguly are more likely to chase and win this than defend the whole day. The risk about Tendulkar is he has already scored a 50 in the first innings. He has scored 50+ runs in the fourth innings chase only 4 times in his career. Compare that to Kallis 6, Lara 9, Dravid 10, Hayden 9, Ponting 7, Inzamam 7.

Also as a team, the recent statistics is strongly against India. In the last 3 years or so when they had to chase in the fourth innings to either save or win a match with a 300+ target, only once have they saved it.

So here is what has happened when India had to play about a day to chase some big score in recent times:

• Against West Indies at Basseterre, drawn, 298/4 against 392.
• Against England at Mumbai, lost, 100 against 313.
• Against Pakistan at Karachi, lost, 265 against 607.
• Against Pakistan at Bangalore, lost, 214 against 383.
• Against Australia at Nagpur, lost, 200 against 543.
• Against Australia at Bangalore, lost, 239 against 457.