Posted by This is a good pitch. It has led to good cricket.
A one-day pitch can be flat, because the game progresses with each over, but Test matches progress with the fall of wickets. When a match is progressing, other events other than wickets also matter more. It is how Test cricket should be.
A flat pitch tests the relentlessness and concentration of batting sides, but little more. A pitch like this one at Trent Bridge tests those things to a lesser degree, but it also tests skill and decision-making. A hundred in this context is worth so, so much.
Dravid’s value
Rahul Dravid hit a hundred and it is innings like his that remind you why a batsman’s average doesn’t directly correspond to his value. Dravid’s average is high, obviously, but if Thilan Samaraweera is a better batsman than he is, we’ll start going on work nights out at the next available opportunity.
Samaraweera is a good batsman too, but his 231 during this absolute horrow show boosted his average more than Dravid’s 117 yesterday – that’s the point we’re making. We’d describe exactly why Dravid’s innings was so good, but we have little to add to Mike Selvey’s dissection of it.
In not entirely unrelated news
Ravi Bopara achieved something similar this week. Overshadowed by a Test match and David Masters’ bizarre figures of 8-10 in the same fixture, Bopara’s innings has been lost a bit.
Only two of 44 indvidual innings in the Essex v Leicestershire match were of over 40. Billy Godleman made 77. Ravi Bopara made 178. That is exceptional.
However, while the pitch added to the challenge and therefore the achievement, County Championship second division bowling detracts from it.
What detracted from Dravid’s innings? Nothing. That is Test cricket.
Can’t Rahul Dravid bat on such a pitch?
Is the sky a Catholic? Can a bear play the blues? Does the Pope sh*t in the woods?
That’s not very team spirited of you not going on work nights out!
Michael Vaughan is busy thinking how can he blame Rahul Dravid’s century on Vaseline.
KC to completely ignore everything from the Test match and blog about Oliver Newby.
Is everyone around here indifferent to whether Bell should have remained out or not after tea?
Perhaps, as subjects of KC, we are all conditioned simply to have no opinion on all matters pertaining to Bell.
Bell should have remained out, Dhoni is not responsible for Bell’s carelessness. Abhinav Mukund was careless and threw his wicket away, should Strauss have recalled him?
It was just ridiculous and even worse to see the crowd booing.
Or, when Harbhajan Singh was given out, the England players would have heard the edge and could have recalled him. To quote the twice-quoted, only one team was playing in the spirit of the game.
Oh, come on David. It’s not like India have never appealed when they know the batsman hit it.
To me the key is that Bell actually was attempting a 4th run. Morgan told him it wasn’t dead ball. The umpires hadn’t called dead ball.
With Praveen Kumar, I thought it was obvious that he had no idea where the ball went and wasn’t sure that it hadn’t gone for four. It’s silly to say that he should have been quicker.
So basically, if I were Dhoni, I don’t think I’d have recalled Bell.
OTOH, this series was sort of threatening to descend into Sydney 2008. This incident has diffused the whole situation, so there is that.
I guess the question people are trying to ask is, if the positions were flipped and say Laxman was run out (after scoring a hundred) and in similar circumstances, would Strauss have called him back ? Would he have appealed in the first place ?
Also how is appealing for something that you know is not any more or less moral ? May be the answer is “because every one else does it” and this being a one-off situation, it is being treated differently.
Insanity.
I thought the end of the matter was Rahul Dravid’s comment that the entire Indian team FELT it was the wrong thing to do (to give Bell out). In circumstances like this it is very hard to put a strict definition on the rights and wrongs, but the Indians watched the replay, decided that Bell wasn’t attempting a run (which is fairly clear), and further decided that it wasn’t a fair way to be out. I realise that appealing for lbw when you’ve heard a nick, and its converse, not walking when you know you’ve nicked one, are in theory also unfair, but that is what I mean about strict definitions. They don’t FEEL as unfair, to me and to the Indian team also.
All of this just emphasises the excellence of the sporting character of this Indian team. They had the decision in their favour, at that stage potentially a very important one, and they gave it up because of a feeling. As I explained to Bert Jr, the difference between sports stars and sports heroes is not talent.