Fellow Disappointees.
Consider this scenario:
You are 81 not out in a test match after playing all the shots and you are seeing the ball like a watermelon; starring down the barrel of a famous hundred as you fight a rearguard action in a seemingly hopeless, losing cause.
Then suddenly a major fuse in your brain explodes.
You dance down the pitch to a well flighted, well pitched ball, you miss the thing by a proverbial country mile, and only have time to look back over your shoulder to see the best stumper in the game pull the ball down from shoulder height and clinically remove the bails.
What’s the sponsor’s slogan? “Keep on walking”.
Clarkey, Clarkey, Clarkey, what were you thinking?
The kiddie still has a lot to learn about test cricket.
Given what the tail did very late in the piece and the Raj’s winning margin, Pup in fact missed the chance to become an overnight national hero just by keeping an end together and scoring a big hundred.
In a match won by India simply by bowling well in both innings, it might be instructive to have a look at the match batting aggregates in game where no century was scored.
VVS Laxman 106
MJ Clarke 104
R Dravid 96
SR Tendulkar 84
A Symonds 78
IK Pathan 74
RT Ponting 65
Seems fairly obvious Clarke scored his runs in the wrong innings, whereas the Indians popped up where it mattered in both.
But from the off, Straya was always in more trouble than the early settlers when you consider the opener’s match aggregates:
PA Jaques 24
CJL Rogers 19
[From that effort, you’d think that CJL Rogers would join MJ Nicholson in the exclusive One Test Wonder Club].
But the inescapable upshot is that Straya copped a gigantic tusk up the runter to the tune of 72 runs; never mind records going out with the bath water.
I blame the Captain.
Punter looked and acted like his head had been done in by Sydney and its aftermath, made a couple of blunders, and always had your scratching your head.
Interesting that on interview after the game he said “now we won’t be making any excuses for losing the match”, and then proceeded to trot out the list of excuses for losing the match, as if making a powerpoint presentation.
In my book, the Captain has to take responsibility, on account of the buck always stops at the desk of the chief executive officer.
Another shocker in Adelaide, and I may have to give Roebuck a ring re the timing of the gold watch presentation.
