India’s fighting chance goes down the caution drain

Yes, they came back magnificently from 159/5 on the third day morning. Yes, the last-wicket pair of Harbhajan Singh and Munaf Patel, as Lara admitted, ensured that the West Indies were pushed back by a valuable one and-a-half hours that afternoon. But when you step back from the mounting tension of the chase, the clutter of fielders around the bat, the screaming fans, all you see is this equation: 149 runs to win in 27 overs, Yuvraj Singh, St Lucia century-maker Mohammed Kaif and five more to come.

That was what the scoreboard showed last evening when Dhoni walked in to bat, Laxman gone for a 106-ball 63, after a 100-run partnership in 25 overs with skipper Rahul Dravid that took India to the final steps of what could have been one of their best Test wins in recent memory.

The first ball was hit out of the ground, the field spread out, then what happened? That’s what the millions of fans in India would still be trying to work out, even the day after. But into the fifth over of the defining 8.2 overs that followed, some of the West Indian fans had got the hint: “Work the singles, maan,” shouted a gangly gum-seller in a rasta cap.

If you remove the two sixes by Dhoni, those 50 balls produced 18 runs. Now what was that all about? “He didn’t drop anchor. You’ve got to understand the length they were bowling as well. When the ball was pitched up, he went for it. But when the ball was pitched short, it was keeping low, and it wasn’t easy to bat. There were only certain kinds of shots that you could play, and the West Indies bowlers and their captain realised that very quickly,” Dravid said.

“Dhoni wasn’t under any instruction to go out there and smash every ball. I don’t think smashing every ball would have been prudent as well,” the skipper added.

But by the time Dhoni smashed a tired pacer Jerome Taylor to Gayle at cover, the angle had changed once again, India needed 119 runs in 19 overs. Maybe, with Yuvraj Singh struggling for form, it was time for the skipper, batting then at 52 off 100 balls to step on the gas. But then, it was not a normal working day for Dravid the batsman, struggling to build up the tempo, get the gaps, middle the ball. That was also when the West Indians shifted their line of attack to well outside off, push Dravid to shut shop. Which he did.

“We had to give them a sporting chance to see whether we can get some wickets and keep them interested in the game. As soon as they wanted to shut shop, you saw what happened… they fell way short. We knew how to manage the game and I thought it worked out really well in the end,” said Lara.

If the Dhoni gamble didn’t quite come off for India, Lara would be smiling that his did. It really was a huge risk even after key bowler Pedro Collins cramped up — not asking a shaky India to follow on the fourth day — but at the end he walked away with all the credit of having opened up a match that always looked like heading for a draw.

For India, the fact that five of the six top-order batsmen will ride to Jamaica on a wave of centuries will be the one, big positive. As for Yuvraj Singh, eight in 50 balls last evening, that’s a different story.