Ghosts of the Oval Test returned back to haunt Rahul Dravid on Thursday, who made a tortured 5 off 66 balls on day two of the first Test against Australia in Melbourne while opening the Indian innings.
Earlier this year, Dravid batted on the fourth day at the Oval in a manner as if he was trying to save the game for India, forgetting that it was actually England -- and not India -- who was 319 runs behind!
Dravid batted for 140 minutes on that day scoring a painful 12, which virtually grabbed India a draw from the jaws of victory. Dravid's batting at Melbourne was no different from his Oval's effort as he managed a meagre 5 after struggling for about 98 minutes on the crease. He was perhaps trying to fetch India a draw, forgetting that it is only the second day of the match!
It was only after spending 64 minutes at the crease that Dravid finally managed to open his account off the 41st delivery he faced.
So where does Dravid's performance stand?
There have been quite a few 'better' performances than Dravid's stonewalling. New Zealand's Geoff Allott once batted for 101 minutes and still failed to open his account. But most of such performances came from lower order batsmen who had no or very little batting abilities or were batting under tremendous pressure. So, they can't really be blamed for their slow scoring.
Dravid's performance is the fourth worst performance in entire Test history if we take into consideration the performances of the specialist batsmen only.
Longest wait in opening the account:
| Minutes | Batsman | Against | Venue | Season |
| 70 | Bill Murdoch (Aus) | England | Sydney | 1882-83 |
| 67 | Chris Tavare (Eng) | Pakistan | Lord's | 1982 |
| 66 | John Wright (NZ) | Australia | Wellington | 1981-82 |
| 64 | Rahul Dravid (Ind) | Australia | Melbourne | 2007-08 |
| 63 | Chris Tavare (Eng) | Australia | Perth | 1982-83 |
| 62 | Mark Taylor (Aus) | England | Sydney | 1994-95 |
