OSCILLATING HOPES, THEN DESPAIR

This is Virat Kohli's hour of reckoning. If he can bat his way through to victory, it will remain standing testimony to his cricketing calibre and to his character as a captain. If he pulls it off today, he will merit favourable comparison with the likes of Lara and Tendulkar and walk into the pantheon of cricket's greatest. But alas, Kohli is gone and the match perilously hangs in the balance! As fortune oscillates and nerves play their adequate role, the Freedom Series is poised for a tantalising opener. Now it is up to Rohit Sharma and Wriddhiman Saha to provide the platform before Pandya pulls it off. And now Sharma is bowled by Philander, dragging one from wide outside the off-stump on to his unsuspecting stumps. Now the hero of the first innings walks into the arena. Will Pandya be the saviour? Now, Pandya gone and with it withers India's hopes. Will Saha and Ashwin save the day? One desperately hopes so. Today is Saha's chance to cement his place in India's cricketing lore. Let us see how much mettle he has. 127 more required as Saha settles down to face Philander. This is the defining moment when the future of India's cricketing character abroad will be forged or foiled. Ashwin is pluckily hanging on and Saha is battling too but the runs are drying up and the target seems unattainable. It is a distant summit now and the ascent steep. Just now at the stroke of tea Saha departs caught leg before wicket and the tail now is there to be wound up for an ignominious defeat in the offing. One wonders when Indian cricketers will stop revelling at marriage parties before an important Test Series. Ashwin keeps our hopes alive but at such a trickle, it will take ages for the score to pile and the odds of getting out will mount. It will take Ashwin to legendary proportions if he can pull it off today. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar is a capable batsman in so far as tail-end batting is concerned and did himself credit in the first innings in partnership with Pandya. Now it will be up to his grit too to help Ashwin build up the final partnership to claw to what seems to be an improbable but not impossible victory.

Well, the Test match is over and with it India cuts her sorry tale yet again when she is competing abroad outside of the subcontinent. The usual analyses will follow but what will be left out of the discussion will be this penchant for festive revelry, marital or otherwise, prior to an important national engagement, that invariably stands opposed to principles of brahmacharya so very crucial to clinical perfection in international sporting endeavour. Hence, the routine rigmarole of imperfect analysis and its consequent below-par performance on the field will mar future prospects and the same old saga of failed overseas execution of the everyday success on home-soil will continue. Newton, indeed, is well-celebrated here in India, for the Law of Inertia holds true here like, perhaps, nowhere else.