CricDigs Blogs

We had one wall – Rahul Dravid. Cracks had appeared in this wall as Rahul Dravid, the Mr. Dependable, lost form inexplicably. You can expect a Saurav Ganguly or a Sehwag to lose form, but Dravid! Well, he has regained his form and contributed a solid 83 and 60+ runs when it mattered most. More importantly, he fended off 220 balls to score 62 runs, 8 balls more than Laxman faced to score 124. This is not to undermine Laxman’s superb innings. Dravid came at a time when staying at the crease took precedence over scoring runs. He would have continued had it not been for the stupid decision followed by the mantra, “when in doubt, give the Indian batsmen out”. With his stick-to-itiveness Rahul Dravid is enough to make any bowler cry.

Add to that a Gautam Gambhir. This aggressive batsman showed rare character by dropping anchor in the second innings and facing 436 balls. Facing that many balls requires a batsman to stay at the crease for nearly 11 hours, which means one and half cricketing days. That’s awesome, given the situation we were in.

The third wall that the New Zealand bowlers bumped in to was Laxman. With a total score of 200 runs he stood rock solid in the way of a NZ victory. Denying them any chance with his wristy stroke play he plodded on till the end. Sachin is one batsman who can be a wall, a canon, and a gun. His 49 runs in the first innings was scored rapidly and the 64 runs in the second innings was a guarded innings fitting the occasion. Yuvi also showed that he too can be a wall and posed strong hurdles for NZ bowlers. His 54 not out, that smacked responsibility is better than a century.

But the sixth wall is what fended off all attacks from the NZ bowlers. He didn’t even play in the match. Yes, he is none other than M S Dhoni. That incredible man has inculcated such strong sense of self belief in our cricket players that losing is an aberration, a draw is a victory, and winning is normal for us.