A day of nerve-wrecking fightbacks

"If we'd have lost the game and gone 2-0 down I don't think we'd have come back from there - not against a team like this."
-Michael Vaughan

“I thought 262 was a good score and we were sailing at one point. But it got too close for comfort in the end”
-Rahul Dravid

Two teams, one at the top and one almost at the bottom of the ladder, showed us the importance of why it’s never over until the fat lady decides to holler. Australia and West Indies came agonizingly close to creating a shudder that would have been heard around the cricketing world and relegated two teams to utter despair. India’s woes have been of their own causing persisting with a four bowler strategy when time and time again in this series the folly of that approach has been discovered. And England’s Ashes campaign almost came to a thundering halt when a routine two wickets to end an already incredible test match turned into an astonished heave to break the determination of Lee, Warne and Kasprowicz. The Aussies have now been involved in a tied test match, a one run, two run and a three run losses. But in the end, neither Ricky Ponting nor Sylvester Joseph, who captained the team in Chanderpaul's absence, would begrudge the fact that the better team won in the end.

West Indies came to Sri Lanka with virtually no hope of winning. Despite the encouraging sound bytes from their manager and captain, the only expectation anybody had was akin to the expectations people have of the Bangladesh or Zimbabwe teams; if they could show some semblance of fight in them. But in the two test matches, they troubled Sri Lanka plenty but did not have the batting skill to counter Vaas and Murali. Had these two players not been there, it might well have been a different story in those matches. And when India arrived for the triangular, again everybody rolled their eyes and muttered about meaningless triangulars where the final was already decided before a ball had been bowled. But the Windies bowlers were spirited and quick and troubled virtually every batsman, and shocked a few spectators who probably thought bowling at 120kmh on line and length was the only way to go. And finally when their batting clicked, the bowlers demolished the SL top order setting up a do-or-die match for the Indians. After today’s match, in which Darren Powell sent Ganguly to the hospital with a sickening blow to the hand, the Windies go out of the tournament as expected, but only after exposing glaring weaknesses in both of the more fancied teams and discovering some wonderful new talent for a bright future nobody thought existed.

After the second test, those familiar tunes of Aussie decline will be played until the third test begins and not all of it is unjustified. The Aussies have held onto the belief that whatever England does, they can do better. And who can blame them? It’s worked for over a decade. But the quality of a champion team is to show respect to the opposition and somehow the Aussie demeanor, watching some of the dreadful shots played, never really suggested that. It is a different England team and as much as they almost choked today, they have the players who can return every Aussie shot or bouncer with equal, if not greater, zeal. A team that is undefeated for 18 months beating the likes of SAF away cannot be undermined. And Ricky Ponting and co. would do well to go back to their drawing board and devise a plan not to play England on intimidation, but on the age-old characters of sound batting and tight bowling, as playing a waiting game is as effective as playing the bully. There is a long way to the end of the series and Mcgrath might very well not be part of it anymore.

Final shots…

Asked whether he preferred tight, testing matches like this, or flattening the opposition the way the Aussies so often do, Ponting laughed. "I'd rather be flattening 'em - at least I'd have some fingernails left!"
-Ricky Ponting

“We came into this series having no hope at all and we leave with a lot of positives for the future. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the boys”
-Bennet King (WI coach)