Winning ain't easy

Test victories abroad have been elusive for the Indian team and Monday was another example of how difficult it is to win a Test match. It was a brilliant finish with fielders crowding the bat, loud appeals by the Indians and deafening applause for every ball that was kept out by the West Indians. The last over will be something Sreesanth will be replaying in his mind for a very long time. India got six wickets in the last session, but they needed one more. Focusing on the end will be doing a disservice to a great Test match. A Test match with outstanding contributions from actors on both sides, Dwayne Bravo with an inspired spell of swing and cut on the first day, Gayle with a breathtaking assault on the second day, an incredible back to the wall double century by Jaffer spread over the third and fourth days topped off by an astonishing whirling dervish of an innings from Dhoni. They set the stage for the climactic fifth day.

Jaffer who fluffed a crucial chance off Chanderpaul on the final day, must be wondering why fate was conspiring against him after he had probably played the innings of his life. It is a funny game, this cricket, and he has to look no further than his captain Rahul Dravid to learn to treat both triumph and disasters as the twin imposters they truly are. Sreesanth would be another to agree, after getting hammered in the first innings he came back to pick up two wickets on the final day including Lara for a duck. Bravo who picked up 4 wickets in the first innings, went wicketless as the pitch eased up in the second innings. Dave Mohammad who got clobbered by Dhoni, scored a vital half century on the final day to thwart the Indians.

One of the most compelling sights was Ian Bradshaw lying flat on the pitch in a mixture of relief and gratitude after he snuck one through Jaffer’s defenses to get his only wicket of the match. In the absence of the injured Edwards and a below par Colleymore, Bradshaw bowled a marathon 25 overs on the trot. Incredibly enough, he bowled more overs than Anil Kumble in the match!

Kumble showed why he is a champion bowler with 7 wickets in the match, but the surprise package was Sehwag with 4 wickets. Sehwag’s bowling seems to have improved tremendously, he has added a drifter to his repertoire which he probably picked up from Ramesh Powar, it shapes away like a gentle outswinger and goes straight on after pitching. He picked up two wickets with this ball. He also claimed one with a flighted off break that bounced and turned for Dhoni to complete a great stumping to dismiss Bravo.

As the match progressed the Antigua pitch lost all its juice, and the faster bowlers struggled, and in the end Dravid would have been wishing that he had had the services of Harbhajan Singh on the final day. The umpires Simon Taufel and Azad Rauf had a tough match, with Taufel probably having his poorest Test match in quite a while. There was a complete breakdown in authority during Dhoni’s controversial dismissal in the second innings. The poor cameraman got too excited with Dhoni’s pyrotechnics, that he forgot to focus on the ball and got carried away with his theoretical path of the Dhoni projectile. The third umpire said he couldn’t see if the catch was clean, and the on field umpires proved to be a dithering duo without the evidence. Lara certainly wouldn’t like to see a replay of his churlish reaction to the whole saga. But, it definitely added to the drama of what was a fantastic Test match.

This was Test match that India almost wrested away from the West Indies, and they will go into the second Test match in a much better frame of mind.