Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat
Cricket can at times become very absorbing when the spectators either in front of the television set or stadium almost lose interest or hope of their team scoring a victory. One of the memorable moments when this worked in favor of India was in the Natwest trophy final in England when the Indian side captained by Sourav Ganguly chasing an improbable total of over 325 scored a dramatic win after losing more than half the side with the score standing at 120 and odd. Mohammad Kaif, a relatively lesser known name in the cricketing circles came to the rescue and overnight got declared an Indian cricketing hero.
Running way back to the era when only test cricket existed, the Indian team was playing at Chepauk against the strong touring West Indies side. They were faring very badly and had lost nine wickets before crossing the hundred mark. GR Vishwanath was at the crease and he was partnered by Bhagwat Chandrashekhar who holds the unenviable record for maximum number of ducks in Test cricket. At that point of time one of the spectators, an ardent Indian fan died of heart attack being unable to digest his team’s poor performance. The great GRV as described by Australian commentator Richie Benaud, managed a century partnership with Chandra and India managed to score 192 in their first essay. There were several topsy-turvy situations including the Windies rapidly losing all their wickets before inching towards India’s first innings total. Finally, India managed to come on top and win the match.
A much bigger turn around in history of Indian test cricket occurred in a Three-test home series against the touring Australians. India had already lost the first Test at Mumbai by a humiliating margin. In the Second Test at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens, they were asked to follow-on owing to a huge deficit in their first innings score. The batting side that looked strong only on paper till that point of time managed to amass over six hundred with sterling performances from VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid who was popularly known as ‘The Wall’. Australia had to play the fourth innings and lost the Test.
In fact, even the way the series played out was a very interesting twist granting India a 2-1 victory after they managed to scrape through with a two-wicket victory in a very absorbing encounter. The final runs were scored by Harbhajan Singh. In fact, there is an interesting anecdote I would like to share about the final overs of this match. All of us reporters at Mumbai Asian Age were watching the match on television along with our resident editor Sujoy Gupta. Sujoy got so tense that he switched off the television. We then had to coax him to switch it on again. I remember telling him, “It’s after all a game. None of us are at war.”
There was another occasion related to the 2011 World Cup when India was playing against England in a league match. India had scored 300 plus and were feeling smug about their total. England responded strongly and were comfortably cruising beyond the 270 mark with a loss of one wicket. Suddenly their wickets started tumbling and there was a lot of excitement about a close finish. The match ended in a tie. Not all absorbing matches may result in a victory.
