Kapthaanon ka Kapthaan...Dravid hai sabse mahaan!

4thODI India Vs England, Natwest Series played on Aug 30th, 2007

Chasing a modest target of 213, the English looked weaker than India in batting. Not to forget the massive scores they piled up in the previous encounters, this was a target to be achieved in may be 40 overs...with the kind of Indian attack, the form of English batsmen and not to forget the vital contributions from Indian fielders. The fielders would give 30 runs assured, so England needed to put just 180 of the bat. Oh...that’s easy. As they say 'Once in a blue moon things happen' so was the day for bowlers. Zaheer looked charged up with the aggressive stares and balls with ultimate pace, he had England look to tremble. But all was set by our very own economical bowler, Ajit Agarkar. Taking 4 handsome wickets, England looked struggling in the middle. To add up to the fuel, RP Singh gets a run out. All this cannot happen in a day for India. They never complimented each other so well. Couldn’t have expected more from them. England, 114/7 needed another 99 runs. Overs never mattered. 3 wickets were easy to get with only the tail to follow. All of a sudden, Indian settle down with some simple spin stuff, giving away 3 runs per over. Dravid thought probably, 'Though we didn’t bat well, we have the victory in site. Its all about reaching it sooner or later'. Who knew it would never be reached. With the likes of Bopara and Broad at the crease, no Indian, not even the Englishmen imagined there was a chance for England. May be if at all there was, it was a 10-90% chance. So India will win. Bopara has played some good innings, but Broad is young and new to international scenario. He can’t play long. All went it vain when the partnership started growing and building very strong. Dravid was rotating his spinners all the while trying to get some wickets but that never happened. With around 30 more runs to win for them, we had RP having 5 overs left. He bowled beautifully to Broad, got him past edges. Zaheer had 4 to go and agarkar had 1... it was evident that one of them had to come back. Zaheer came but looked uncomfortable due to some groin injury. This made Dravid put on the thinking cap.RP bowled well, 5 overs for just 18. All felt he'll come in. But NO... Dravid had something else in mind. He tossed the ball to Tendulkars and Yuvrajs. What can they do? They help you get breakthroughs in middle overs, not in crunches. It’s putting too much pressure on them. Dravid never thought his speedsters, when he always thinks about playing 5 bowlers, then why to Ten or Yuv? Finally, when 13 runs had to go, Agarkar came but did nothing much. At last in the last few runs, Dravid had no other choice but to go for RP and he bowled beauties. He got 2 past the outside edge and one which came in almost got us a wicket. But it was too late, as the pressure was already released. Had he come a little while ago we had a chance to make it. All because of the intelligent captaincy of Mr. Wall. Then Mr. Wall in the presentation '.... Credits to England. From 114/7...yes we should have got them but then it was only 3 and a half runs needed per over so it was always possible. We had to bring it up to 4 or 5 to put more pressure and get wickets. We should have added 25-30 more runs (same old Dravid story)...blah...blah...blah'Everytime u cant say the same thing man...we were 30-40 runs short..... U got to give credit to bowlers to put us in such terrific situation, in spite of such a low target to defend. They did a splendid job... it was only the master class lacking in Dravid to make few obvious changes and get them rolled on. The sole person responsible for the defeat, I should say 'Dravid'.

Here goes the song for Dravid...
Ninyanve runs ka yeh safar,
theen wicketon ka saath.
Aapne haske de diya,
Tendulkar ke haath mein ball.
Runnon ki ho gayi phir dekho, bin baadal barsaat..... oye
Hudh kardhi aapne....Hudh kardhi aapne...