How can 66 balls 5 runs be worse than a first ball duck. Agree, its not a good innings by a long distance but labelling it as 4th worst is stretching things too far. Longest wait to open account is not a criteria to judge batting performance.
RE:how can it be 4th worst
by ganesh v on Dec 28, 2007 09:46 AM Permalink
i perfectly agree, morethan the 66 balls it was nearly 2 hours he stayed which is important, otherwise India would have been all out for lessthan 100.
RE:how can it be 4th worst
by Janardhana on Dec 28, 2007 08:07 AM Permalink
I fully agree. In reality dravid did a decent job, by seeing off new ball and allowing stroke players to play their game although I agree it would have been good if he himself got some decent runs. But remember he is out of form and he is not an opener. On the contrary What did regular opener jaffer did. Similarly if some body bats like dravid did, in test it can also affect bowlers too. Not getting wicket can frustrate them also. Moreover, clearly after dravid, Sachin and sourav played a decent partnership and they have gained back momentum with 130 for 3 down, from which 300 plus was possibility. What happened then, why India lost sudden 3 wickets, what did Yuvaraj and Dhoni do. In fact this hurt more than anybody else. The 3 quick wickets when momentum was slowly turning to Indian side hurt India more than anybody else. Even if Yuvaraj and Dhoni stayed at crease like dravid did, we would have some runs and they were playing old ball which was far more easier than playing newball, they were in their familiar batting positions. But unfortunately, people and media doesnot talk about this for they are biased and having a single point agenda to finish off Dravid.