Ind-Pak 2004 Multan Test: Dravid's Declaration

Why start the discussion now? Because some discussions don't lose their sheen ever. They are always good to discuss. Same is this one. Even more when India is about to begin their 1st Test in a couple of days. What's better than to start this now and build up the tempo. Since we had a discussion last time I thought some more about it and decided to write this blog. Anyway to continue ....

Ind Vs Pak 2004 Multan Test is best remembered for Virendra Sehwag's 309 or first ever triple hundred by an Indian batsman. Well this was undoubtedly the statistical highlight of the match, Dravid's Declaration when India was 675/5 was another most talked about topic. Reason being it left tendulkar just 6 short of another double century.

I still find it pretty amazing that it created so much controversy at that time and will be probably discussed everytime Multan Test is going to be discussed. Add it to the fact that tendulkar came out saying that he was "disappointed" and "surprised" with the timing of the declaration.

Tendulkar can be disappointed with the declaration but shouldn't he be aware that this was going to happen. Well as per some of the articles he was told not once but twice of the declaration. But the point here is not if he was informed or not before the declaration was made. More importantly why it was such a big deal if tendulkar is left stranded on 194.

Well personally speaking I understand that it should not have taken a lot of time for tendulkar to score the left over 6 runs to complete his 200. What I fail to understand is the amount of interest everybody had with completing the tendulkar's 200 rather than seeing how much India need to score to win this game. There was no discussion if the scored runs were sufficient to win the game. There was no discussion that scoring 700 would have given India a pyschological advantage. Given the fact that it was just the second day of the game nobody knew what would happen in the coming days of the match, like how much the pitch is going to turn, will the time available be sufficient for the Indian bowlers to bowl out pakistan twice. Also Tendulkar had scored 3 more double hundreds before this one. Why so much bother about another double hundred. It's not a triple hundred that no Indian has done before this match. Nobody will remember tendulkar for 4/5 double hundreds, they will remember him the way he thrashed shane warne when Aussies visited India for the famous series which India eventually won 2-1. Everybody will remember him the way he took India singlehadedly to the finals in sharjah and many other wins which became possible only because of Tendulkar. So why bother for another double hundred.

Another interesting discussion point is "what if the person left stranded on 194" was not tendulkar. What if it was somebody else. Well those are the ifs and buts, but still pretty open to anybody's assumption. I think we can leave that aside anyway.

I fail to understand in a game like Cricket which is played by 11 players why personal milestone means so much. Why can't they be ignored for the sake of team. Not to say that I am not a big fan of Tendulkar. He is probably the most attractive batsman in world cricket but then doesn't give him or anybody the right to put personal milestones above team. What do you say?