As some of you would have gathered by now, I’m a bit of a cricket nut. [If you have no idea what the game is about, take a look at the Wikipedia entry that I’ve linked to, it’s a reasonably good place to start.]
Today was one of those frustrating days when I was sure Tendulkar would get his 38th hundred, but it was not to be. I make no comment whatsoever about at least four of today’s dismissals, other than to say I make no comment.
Moving on. By the time Taufel had upheld appeals for the dismissals of Tendulkar and Ganguly, I began to wonder whether an unusual record was in sight. The highest innings score by a team without any individual hundreds. So I decided to google it, found a route to a story in Cricinfo that listed the following entries:
- India 524/9 declared (1976, Kanpur, v New Zealand, drawn)
- South Africa 517 (1998, Adelaide, v Australia, drawn)
- Pakistan 500/8 declared (1981, v Australia, Melbourne, won)
- Bangladesh 488 (2005, v Zimbabwe, Chittagong, won)
- Australia 485 (1993, v New Zealand, Christchurch, won)
- India 485 (1997, v Sri Lanka, Nagpur, drawn)
- South Africa 479 (2000, v India, Bangalore, won)
- England 477/9 declared (1994, v South Africa, Leeds, drawn)
- Australia 476 (1912, v England, Adelaide, lost)
- West Indies 475 (1962, v India, Bridgetown, won)
Guess it’s time to make a new entry in 7th place. Interestingly, India now have 3 entries in the top 10. And they didn’t win on the other two occasions.
Winning this one will not be easy either. Clearly England will not win, but I think a draw is the most likely.
Watching England bat at the end of day three, it was clear that unless the pitch starts to crumble or the batsmen make mistakes or Kumble just becomes incredibly unplayable, batting is not going to be too hard.
A draw would be sad. India has batted beautifully and deserves to win. Especially since Sachin and Ganguly were, essentially, robbed of their hundreds :) (then again, England deserved to win at Lords and that didn’t happen…)
I must be masochistic. I’d rather see the wicket stay a run-feast for a day, then a complete nightmare on the fifth day, so much so that we enter the final session on Tuesday with all three results possible. Tall order maybe, but that to me is cricket.
JP, are you discounting the possibility of an England win? I prefer to believe all four results are still possible :-)
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Reminds me of the usual Red answer to the three teams that come from Merseyside: Liverpool; Tranmere; Liverpool Reserves
I’d actually discounted the Tie, and allowed for the other 3 outcomes.
Sure Kamran, I will go take a look.
Ah, a day brings so much clarity :) It will be good for India to notch up the rare “away” test win!
I am not pessimistic by nature, but I am old enough to remember India being bowled out for 42 sometime in the late sixties or early seventies. I even remember the roy ullyett cartoon.
Law 24 states that a bowler must inform the umpire if he decides to bowl with his ‘wrong’ hand. But RH batsmen can play LH and vice versa, the so-called reverse sweep. This is unfair.
One consequence is that if a ball pitches an inch outside the leg stump – which has now become the off stump – the batsman can’t be out lbw.
Madness.