The Cricket blog

Negative means to a positive end

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

Rahul Dravid’s knock was reminiscent of his one-day innings in the late nineties, when batting became an almighty struggle
© Getty Images

Watching Rahul Dravid during his 96-ball 12 was to see a captain ponder with the bat. The tedious innings, drawn out over two hours and twenty minutes, encapsulated his decision not to enforce the follow-on: defensive but perfectly understandable.
When England were bowled out, with the sun still out, India led by 319; when he walked out to bat, with the cloud cover on, they were effectively 329 for 1, few minutes later it was 330 for 3. The big picture remained rosy, the microscopic view slightly more blurred. India sitting on a 1-0 lead, England hadn’t totalled more than 355 in the whole series and no team had successfully chased more than 263 at The Oval. Only on five occasions […]

Original post by Nishi Narayanan and software by Elliott

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