Rain saves India!
Prem Panicker
That is not the kind of headline you expect to write for a Test match on Indian soil. Most especially not when a full-strength Indian team, with as many as three spinners, takes on an England XI that, before the start of this series, was so shorn of top performers with bat and ball that it was being written off as little better than a county side.
And yet, that is the plain, unvarnished truth -- in Bangalore no less, India's cricket team, which started this year with a 2-1 win over world champions Australia, was saved a humilating experience by unseasonal rains.
Day four was supposed to contain two extended sessions of two and a half hours each, to make up for the 47 overs lost on day three. Instead, overnight rains and wet underfoot conditions conspired to delay start of play till 1415 local time.
Mathew Hoggard and Andrew Flintoff duly took out the three remaining Indian wickets for the addition of 20 runs -- this, despite two chances going down, one off each of the overnight notouts. Flintoff started it when, one ball after his bowling partner had dropped Harbhajan Singh off a skied slog, he got one to jump up at Kumble around off, the edge flying to Trescothick at second slip. Hoggard then joined the party when a fullish length delivery had Harbhajan getting a leading edge as he attempted to play off his pads, Nasser Hussain at mid off diving forward to snaffle the chance. Michael Vaughan in the covers finished things off with a sharp bit of fielding and accurate throw, to catch Sarandeep Singh out of his ground following a mixup with last man Srinath.
England began its reply with a 98 run lead -- and from the first Srinath over, which went for 11 runs, it was evident that England hoped to build on that lead and see if it couldn't put a bit of pressure on the home side on the last day.
Seven overs produced 33 runs with Mark Butcher, 23 not out off 25 deliveries, playing aggressor in chief. Harbhajan Singh came on for the eighth over of the innings -- and the rain came down as well, with England at the time leading 131.
When play began this afternoon, it was estimated that weather permitting, a maximum of 43 overs would be possible. Assuming a full quota of play on the final day, that left a total of 133 overs left in the game -- maybe 10, 20 more if the weather stayed fine and extended sessions were possible in the first two sessions of the final day.
England's gameplan would ideally have been to go hell for leather in a search for runs, using up perhaps 33-43 of those overs before attempting to bowl India out in the remaining time. And it just could have worked -- remember that India in the first innings, despite England's bowlers bowling the negative line for the entire duration of the Tendulkar innings, lasted under 100 overs.
As it turned out, however, the umpires were scheduled to restart play at 1700 IST -- but more rains forced play to be called off, with just 15.4 overs played in the entire day.
There is a temptation to sympathise with England -- a side written off before this series began, a side that learnt rapidly on the job and both in Ahmedabad and here, outplayed the more highly-rated opposition on the latter's home soil. A win here, and a squared series, would have been just reward for a bunch of cricketers who did not chicken out of the tour unlike some of their colleagues. It would also have been a remarkable result for an England side that has already notched up wins against Pakistan in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka a year ago.
But somehow, even as you think on sympathetic lines, you remember Nasser's negativity throughout Ahmedabad and here. You recall the sheer tedium of watching bowlers bowl wide of leg stump for session after session. You remember that not once in the 98.3 overs the Indian innings here lasted did Hussain once try out his off spinner, Richard Dawson -- the man who, mind you, had looked their best bowler in the first Test in Mohali; and this on a pitch where, in England's own first innings, both Sarandeep Singh and Harbhajan Singh had found good turn and bounce.
You remember how Hussain spent this series reminding himself, and everyone else, what the Indians had done to Australia earlier this year -- when he would have been better off thinking of what his side could do to the Indians.
You remember all that and you get to thinking that Hussain's primary concern all along has been to avoid defeat -- not to win.
And given that, perhaps the draw that now looks inevitable is merely natural justice in operation.
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