Aug 13: In the fifth and final day of the match India sets a target of 500 runs against England to win the series but Dravid’s decision for not forcing England to follow-on brings debate among the cricketers and cricket lovers. Now Team India stands just one day and ten wickets for a 2-0 series win against England.
On the fourth day after taking the last wicket of Monty Panesar (lbw by Kumble) Indian captain Dravid opted to bat for the second time though they had a lead of 319 runs in lead. England while bowling in their second innings did the best in taking 6 wickets while there were only 180 runs on the board and Dravid preferred to declared taking a lead of 500 runs. England in reply at the stumps has put 56 runs on the board without losing a single wicket.
The decision of Dravid though looks a bit defensive but it was right if one understands cricket as some of our bowlers were not that much of fit to bowl in tandem just after finishing one bowling session. Probably this is what the logical region to defend Dravid’s decision as India has a 7-match one-day series to play against England.
What the negative point of the fourth day is that Indian batsmen struggled to get run after the loss of three wickets at quick succession including Dravid who made only 12 runs after standing for 40 minutes and facing 96 balls before falling to Collingwood.
It was only Sourav Ganguly who played an impressive innings of 57 runs in his natural fashion with some excellent offside stroke. Laxman (46*) and Dhoni (36) were the other two valuable contributors.
The debate is here on Dravid’s decision and looking at the bowler’s fitness problem it seems the right one. So why these hew and cry over this as India is already having a 1-0 ahead? Don’t we want another series win in the ODIs?
On the fourth day let’s look forward to Dravid’s captaincy and let’s see how he uses his bowlers in the very first half of the game so that in the post lunch session Kumble can manage to do the rest. I think Dravid’s decision is fair enough as it is not a matter of loss or less aggressiveness but the manner one takes the advantage ahead. After all our bowlers are in best of their form to bowl England out today…
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